Newsgroups: comp.parallel.mpi
From: frost@rogue.sdsc.edu (Richard Frost)
Subject: Re: Inter-resource communication capabilities
Organization: SDSC
Date: 29 Jun 1995 22:03:30 GMT
Message-ID: <3sv7vi$pel@rosebud.sdsc.edu>

Actually, the tertiary storage problem is harder: communication must occur
across specific device channels.  There are even multiple cases: on the
one hand you have parallel file system-like hardware implementations, and
the other you have an MPP with 10-50 FDDI or HIPPI-like device channels.
Both are connected to the distributed server for the storage system.  Each CPU
of the storage unit is streaming data from independent tape handlers across
these channels.

Your case is inter-application "Memory to/from Memory"; i.e.,
inter-application intercommunicators.  My understanding is that
MPI2 should be able to do this with sockets on most machines, and
native hardware links on some platforms.  Two vendors have privately
stated that they are working on this capability.

In article <dennis.804442643@woodstock> dennis@woodstock.nosc.mil (Dennis Cottel) writes:
>frost@rogue.sdsc.edu (Richard Frost) writes:
>> ... M-to-N problems; e.g., N processors of a parallel database trying to
>> read from M channels of a tertiary storage system.  ...
>
>Which would seem to include our signal processing applications in which
>M processors doing one processing step need to pass the results to N
>processors executing the next processing step.
>
>   Dennis Cottel, dennis@nosc.mil, (619) 553-1645  
>   NCCOSC, RDT&E Division (NRaD), San Diego, CA


-- 
Richard Frost
SDSC

