Cluster Programming: You Can't Always Get What You Want
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Posted by Kenneth Farmer, Tuesday September 19 2006 @ 11:40AM EDT
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ClusterMonkey.net: Fifteen years ago I wrote a short article in a now defunct parallel computing magazine (Parallelogram) entitled "How Will You Program 1000 Processors?" Back then it was a good question that had no easy answer. Today, it is still a good question that still has no easy answer. Except now it seems a bit more urgent as we step into the "mulit-core" era. Indeed, when I originally wrote the article, using 1000 processors was a far off, but real possibility. Today, 1000 processors are a reality for many practitioners of HPC. As dual cores hit the server rooms, effectively doubling the processor counts, many more people will be joining the 1000P club very soon.
So let's get adventurous and ask, "How will you program 10,000 processors?" As I realized fifteen years ago, such a question may never really have a complete answer. In the history of computers, no one has ever answered the question to my liking -- even when considering ten processors. Of course there are plenty of methods and ideas like threads, messages, barrier synchronization, etc., but when I have to think more about the computer than about my problem, something is wrong.
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