CS267 / Eng233 / IDS267 Applications of Parallel Computers

Lecture 1: Introduction


Abstract

This lecture introduces you to the application of parallel processing and to the course. First it demonstrates through a family of case studies how and why important applications require the computing capacity only available through large parallel machines. We see through areodynamic design study how greater quality can be obtained through multidisciplinary simulation, but this demands much greater computing capacity and greater programming generality. Design optimization how faster turn-around on large problems translates into a better exploration of the design space. In information processing, eg., transaction processing and web indexing, we see that parallel processing dominates the high end.

In the second part of the lecture we briefly discuss why parallelism is the only way we will reach the level of performance required for these applications in the near term.

In the third part of the lecture we give an overview of the course.

Reading

Assignment

Postscript

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