NHSE Software Catalog

Global Array Toolkit

url

http://www.emsl.pnl.gov:2080/docs/global/ga.html

abstract

The Global Array (GA) toolkit provides an efficient and portable "shared-memory" programming interface for
distributed-memory computers. Each process in a MIMD parallel program can asynchronously access logical blocks of
physically distributed matrices, without need for explicit cooperation by other processes. Unlike other shared-memory
environments, the GA model exposes to the programmer the Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) characteristics of
the High Performance Computers and acknowledges that access to remote data is slower than to local data. Very efficient
access to the local data is supported.

keywords

parallel processing tool

description

ftp://ftp.pnl.gov/pub/global/Supercomputing94.ps.Z

contact

Jarek Nieplocha / j_nieplocha@pnl.gov

environment

Distributed-memory message-passing MPP:
IBM SP-1/2,
Intel IPSC, Delta, Paragon,
Cray-T3D.
Network of Unix workstations.
Shared memory NUMA MPP:
KSR-1/2.
Uni- and multi-processor workstations (shared memory):
SUN,
SGI (including new Power Challenge),
IBM,
DEC.