The at & T Korbx ® System

Yun-Chian Cheng, David J. Houck, JunMin L1u, Marc S. Meketon, Lev Slutsman, and Pyng Wang are in the Advanced Decision Support Systems Department at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey. Robert J. Vanderbei is a member of technical staff in the Mathematics of Networks and Systems Department at A'T&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. Mr. Cheng joined the company in 1985 and has a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Mr. Houck joined the company in 1979 and has both a B.A. in mathematics and a Ph.D. in operations research from The Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Meketon joined the company in 1982 and has a B.S. in mathematics from Villanova University and both an M.S. and Ph.D. in operations research from Cornell University. (continued on page 19) This paper describes the AT&T KORBX system, which implements certain variants ofthe Karmarkar algorithm ona computer that has multiple processors, each capable ofperforming vector arithmetic. We provide an overview ofthe KORBX system that covers its optimization algorithms, the hardware architecture, and software implementation techniques. Performance is characterized for a variety ofapplications found in industry, government, and academia.