Newsgroups: comp.parallel
From: john@cs.wmich.edu (John Kapenga)
Subject: Systems for parallel program development
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 93 15:04:07 EDT

I better mail this before alll the information reaches the list :-)

Here are a few pointers, some from memory of some of the systems I
know of.(I could get more details and a few facts are likely a bit off, sorry
in advance).

There have been several other systems announced as available, which 
I have not looked at. There are also several other batch processing
queueing systems around, other than condor, which I don't know much about.
Recently a few new language extensions, including  CSP types  of
additions, have been announced  (I have not looked at any of those).

Also consult the usenet groups
	comp.parallel
	comp.parallel.pvm
There is a large archive paralib, which has mostly transputer based
papers and software.

I'll look around a bit and see if anyone has assembled such a list
as this, If not, I may correct/improve it and remail it,
The improved list might have:

Acronym/Name	
Expanded Acronym
Paradigm
Authors
Latest Version
Status
References
Contact
ftp? mail list?
Machines
Remarks.

There have also been a couple papers comparing some of these,
which could be referenced.

DM - parallel message passing machine.
SM - Actual shared memory primatives (one can do message passing on SM machines
	as well. The other way around can be done, but is mainly a research
	topic at present. Where does KSR1 fit ;-) )
network - network of UNIX workstations.
<name>?  -> I'm less sure of <name>

Acronym/Name	Expanded Acronym			Paradigm
-----------	------------------------------------    ------------------
Chemaleon
	A light/portable low level message passing interface.
CUBIX 							DM and networks
	Caltech
	(Practical Introduction Two volume Book by FOX et al.)
	I do not think it is actively supported. replaced by Express.
CMMD	Connection Machine CM5 library			DM
Condor							networks
	wisconson
	distributed process queueing system.
	Has checkpoint/restart capability.
	ftp ftp.cs.wisc.edu /condor
	SUNs, ( alpha for SGI, HP)
DASH/SPLASH						DM, networks and SM
	ftp mojave.stanford.edu
	with some nice examples.
DICE	DISTRIBUTED INTERACTIVE COLLABORATIVE ENVIRONMENT ?
	NCSA
	research project - status unknown, ftp zaphod.ncsa.uiuc.edu
DTM 	Data Transfer Mechanism				networks
	NCSA
	ftp zaphod.ncsa.uiuc.edu
	Provides a simplified unidirectionsl socket model
	(layered over BSD sockets?) for interprocess communications.
	Process control and process addresses are outside
	the scope of DTM (required in DTM calls).
EXPRESS	commercial descendent of CUBIX			DM nad networks
	Parasoft Inc. (they have an ftp site for info)
	well supported, available on many machines and workstation networks.
ISIS	??						networks
	ftp ftp.cs.cornell.edu
	networks of workstations (several types), fault tolerant features.
Linda	none?						XXX tuple operators XXX
	Linda is not really a system, it is an formal abstract	
	language/syntax/environment. (tuple tuple tuple :-)
	There are a couple commercial Linda implementations.
	Looks like a tough row to hoe for irregular problems.
MPI	Message Passing Interface			XXX message passing XXX
	Drafts on netlib (the Drafts on netlib seem far out of date,
	This shas been reported) 
	A standard under development, may be finished by
	Supercomputing 93 (a workshop is scheduled anyway :-) )	
	Should have hetrogenious messaging, looks like it will only
	deal with a static process model (MPI-2 may add dynamics)
 	You can expect an initial portable implementation shortly
	after the standard is complete. Vendor specific inplementation
	should have much higher preformance. If this works out it
	will be the way to go.

	There are two sample implementations floating around, both are
	now very very far from the current Draft.
PARMACS	Parallel Macros ...				DM and SM
	argonne,  text (see P4) used the m4 to expand macros
	on most parallel machines and networks of the time.
	An earlier version of PARMACS was MONMACS (Argonne)
P4      from PPPP 					DM, networks? and SM
	(Portable Programs for Parallel Processors,)
	title of Book  by Boyle et al on the parmacs, the precursor of P4,
	P4 does not use m4 macros.
	netlib -> source argonne  ftp info.mcs.anl.gov 
PCN	Program Composition Notation			DM and networks
	Argonne -  ftp info.mcs.anl.gov
	Follow up to Strand, Parallel language and development
	system, debugging/compiling supported.
PICL	Portable Instrumented Communication Library	DM and networks?
	ORNL
	lean and mean.
	netlib
PVM	Parallel Virtual Machine			DM and networks
	A biggie.
	netlib	- UT, ORNL etal.
RK/CE   Reaction Kernel / Cosmic Environment 		DM nad networks
	caltech
	RK lean/mean and a very tight threaded node OS on
	DM machines. CE on networks of workstations, where
	it is just message passing using the same primatives
	written under UNIX that the RK  node OS provides.
	Historical reference point (I still use it :-) ).
SR	Synchronizing Resources				networks
	arizona 					(sequent as messages)
	ftp from the /sr directory on cs.arizona.edu
	SR is a language for writing concurrent programs
	Book "The SR Programming Language: Concurrency in Practice",
	by Gregory R. Andrews and Ronald A. Olsson 
	(Benjamin/Cummings, 1993, ISBN 0-8053-0088-0).
	Solaris 2.1, SUNOS 4.1.X, SGI Iris, HP RISC, IBM RS/6000, DECstations
	Sequrent Symmetry. SR can invoke C and Fortran
STRAND	none?						DM, networks, SM
	A Language and Environment, Commercial Product	
	Book Available (Ian Foster now at Argonne, see PCN)
zipcode	none						DM and networks?
	Useful on DM machines. Available on several machines. I have not
	seen it on workstations, but it might be (I'll look). Interesting
	design.  Sandia (I think) -> Mississippi State