Current Status and Availability

PVM was publicly released in March 1991 and has gone through a number of updates. The present version of the software, Version 3.0, has been tested with various combinations of the following machines: Sun 3, SPARCstation, Microvax, DECstation, IBM RS/6000, HP-9000, Silicon Graphics IRIS, NeXT, Sequent Symmetry, Alliant FX, IBM 3090, Intel iPSC/860, Thinking Machines CM-2, KSR-1, Convex, and CRAY Y-MP. Figure 3 gives a complete list of machines PVM has been ported to.

Version 3.0 has a number of improvements over the previous version (2.4). A list of new features are itemize below.

• Runs on Multiprocessors - Paragon, CM-5, etc. using efficient vendor specific calls underneath
• Dynamic Process Groups - user defined grouping
• Dynamic Configuration - able to add and delete hosts
• Multiple Message Buffers - for interface and library
• Improved Routines - receive by source or type automatic multiple spawns with debug and trace options pack and unpack messages using a stride
• Signal handling - PVM processes can pass and catch
• New naming convention for routines, (backwards compatability with PVM2.4 is supplied).

PVM is available through netlib. To obtain a description of PVM's features, such as a copy of the PVM User's Guide or source code, one simply sends e-mail to netlib@ornl.gov with the message send index from pvm.