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5th Annual Linux Showcase & Conference — Abstract
Beowulf Cluster Design for Scientific PDE Models
B. McGarvey, R. Cicconetti, N. Bushyager, E. Dalton and M. Tentzeris, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
Abstract
This paper details some of the basic issues that arise when designing a Beowulf cluster for particular types of
scientific simulations. The general problems of interest are partial differential equations (PDEs). These equations
describe natural phenomenon and can be numerically solved. Finite differencing is used to solve the system of
equations. This method naturally delineates the problem into four distinct categories based on the span of the data
stencil used to update the next point: Independent, Nearest Neighbor, Quasi-Global, and Global. This delineation
also relates the communication requirements between the independent processes. Other important factors include
computation and memory requirements of the algorithm and particular problem. Design tradeoffs are presented with
regards to algorithm development, communication architecture, and node configuration.
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