The PVM Concurrent Computing System: Evolution, Experiences, and Trends

The PVM system a software framework for heterogeneous concurrent computing in networked environments has evolved in the past several years into a viable technol ogy for distributed and parallel processing in a variety of disciplines PVM supports a straightforward but functionally complete message passing model and is capable of harnessing the combined resources of typically heterogeneous networked computing plat forms to deliver high levels of performance and functionality In this paper we describe the architecture of PVM system and discuss its computing model the programming interface it supports auxiliary facilities for process groups and MPP support and some of the internal implementation techniques employed Performance issues dealing pri marily with communication overheads are analyzed and recent ndings as well as experimental enhancements to are presented In order to demonstrate the viability of PVM for large scale scienti c supercomputing the paper includes representative case studies in materials science environmental science and climate modeling We conclude with a discussion of related projects and future directions and comment on near and long term potential for network computing with the PVM system Research supported by the Applied Mathematical Sciences program O ce of Basic Energy Sciences U S Department of Energy under Grant No DE FG ER and contract DE AC OR with Martin Marietta Energy Systems Inc and the National Science Foundation under Award Nos CCR