Newsgroups: sci.math.num-analysis,comp.parallel
From: sahutch@cs.sandia.gov (Scott A. Hutchinson)
Subject: Aztec: A parallel iterative package...
Organization: Sandia National Laboratories
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 1995 19:54:45 GMT
Message-ID: <yzppwe0ps3e.fsf@darwin.cs.sandia.gov>

			SOFTWARE ANNOUNCEMENT

        Aztec: A parallel iterative package for the solving linear 
        systems arising in Newton-Krylov Methods 

        Authors: Ray S. Tuminaro, John N. Shadid, Scott A. Hutchinson
		 Sandia National Laboratories
		 Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Aztec is an iterative library that greatly simplifies the
parallelization process when solving a sparse linear system of
equations Ax = b where A is a user supplied nxn sparse matrix, b is a
user supplied vector of length n and x is a vector of length n to be
computed.  Aztec is intended as a software tool for users who want to
avoid cumbersome parallel programming details but who have large
sparse linear systems which require an efficiently utilized parallel
processing system.  A collection of data transformation tools are
provided that allow for easy creation of distributed sparse
unstructured matrices for parallel solution.  Once the distributed
matrix is created, computation can be performed on any of the parallel
machines running Aztec: nCUBE 2, IBM SP2 and Intel Paragon, MPI
platforms as well as standard serial and vector platforms.

Aztec includes a number of Krylov iterative methods such as conjugate
gradient (CG), generalized minimum residual (GMRES) and stabilized
biconjugate gradient (BiCGSTAB) to solve systems of equations.  These
Krylov methods are used in conjunction with various preconditioners
such as polynomial or domain decomposition methods using LU or
incomplete LU factorizations within subdomains.  Although the matrix A
can be general, the package has been designed for matrices arising
from the approximation of partial differential equations (PDEs).

Also, Aztec supports two different sparse matrix notations - either a
point-entry modified sparse row (MSR) format or a block-entry variable
block row (VBR) format.  These two formats have been generalized for
parallel implementation and the library includes highly optimized
matrix-vector multiply kernels and preconditioners for both types of
data structures.

Aztec is publicly available through a research license.  The code is
distributed along with technical documentation, example C and Fortran
driver routines and sample input files via the internet.  It may be
obtained by contacting one of the authors below:

	Ray S. Tuminaro
	tuminaro@cs.sandia.gov
	(505) 845-7298

	John N. Shadid
	jnshadi@cs.sandia.gov
	(505) 845-7876

	Scott A. Hutchinson
	sahutch@cs.sandia.gov
	(505) 845-7996

Please visit our Aztec Web page with postscript papers available at

	http://www.cs.sandia.gov/HPCCIT/aztec.html
-- 
=========================================================================
Scott A. Hutchinson

Sandia National Laboratories		Phone:  (505) 845-7996
Department 9221				Secy:   (505) 845-7397
Parallel Computational Sciences		Fax:    (505) 845-7442
MS 1111
P.O. Box 5800				http://www.cs.sandia.gov/~sahutch
Albuquerque, NM 87185-1111		email:  sahutch@cs.sandia.gov
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