NPAC Technical Report SCCS-750
High Performance Distributed Computing
Geoffrey Fox
Submitted December 20 1995
Abstract
High Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC) is driven by the rapid
advance of two related technologies -- those underlying computing and
communications, respectively. These technology pushes are linked to
application pulls, which vary from the use of a cluster of some 20
workstations simulating fluid flow around an aircraft, to the complex
linkage of several hundred million advanced PCs around the globe to
deliver and receive multimedia information. The review of base
technologies and exemplar applications is followed by a brief
discussion of software models for HPDC, which are illustrated by two
extremes -- PVM and the conjectured future World Wide Web based WebWork
concept. The narrative is supplemented by a glossary describing the
diverse concepts used in HPDC.