Subject: LAM

From: Nathan Doss <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 20:36:23 -0600

>Path: nntp.msstate.edu!darwin.sura.net!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!mane.cgrg.ohio-state.edu!tbag.osc.edu!not-for-mail
>From: [email-masked] (Greg Burns)
>Newsgroups: comp.parallel.pvm
>Subject: Get started with MPI now (s/w available).
>Date: 24 Mar 1994 16:52:43 -0500
>Organization: The Ohio Supercomputer Center
>Lines: 111
>Distribution: world
>Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
>NNTP-Posting-Host: tbag.osc.edu

Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) announces the general release of
LAM, a UNIX cluster implementation of the MPI interprocess communication
standard.  The software is available in source code form under the terms
of the GNU general license (V2).  Distribution is via anonymous ftp from
tbag.osc.edu under pub/lam.

The factory default software supports the following platforms:

Sun 4 (sparc), SunOS 4.1.3
Sun 4 (sparc), Solaris 2.3
SGI IRIX 4.0.5
IBM RS/6000, AIX v3r2
DEC AXP, OSF/1 V1.3

Technical Summary

Key Features

- standard MPI communication
- heterogeneous networks
- micro-kernel, multi-process, modular structure
- hands-on monitoring and control
- easy transition to dedicated h/w
- PVM compatibility
- parallel I/O

Standard MPI Interprocess Communication

The MPI Forum, which included representatives from every end of
the parallel computing community, has specified a complete interface
for message based interprocess communication, named MPI (Message
Passing Interface).  Widespread use of MPI will benefit the general
advancement of parallel processing technology.  The specific semantics
of the communication interface, its perceived popular and future
prospects, need no longer be a factor in choosing an environment
or a vendor for developing message passing applications.  Users
and buyers can focus on other factors such as efficiency of
implementation and related development tools.

Given the breadth of participation in MPI Forum and the depth
of their deliberations (which have been available on netlib),
widespread adoption by vendors and acceptance by users seems
likely.  LAM is a non-proprietary platform for users to evaluate
MPI hands-on and to begin developing MPI applications.

LAM is a full cluster computing environment.  MPI does
not specify file I/O, machine configuration and process management,
so LAM fills in these gaps to form a complete system.

LAM has debugging commands to examine the MPI synchronization
status of processes and messages.

At the time of this initial release, the first MPI specification
has not been finalized.  The implementation for the current release
is confined to the sanctioned MPI subset and is based on the
draft document of Nov. 2, 1993.  LAM's MPI implementation of
MPI will be updated as soon as the final document is released.
We are confident that the current implementation is a very usable
starting point.

PVM Compatibility

LAM also has a library to run PVM 3 applications.  As with
MPI, there are debugging commands to examine the PVM synchronization
status of processes and messages.

Configuration and Process Management

LAM unpacks and installs anywhere.  The user shell's search path
is used to locate the LAM server, utilities and application programs
on every machine.  Configuring a cluster is listing machine names
in a file and invoking a utility.

Process management is completely dynamic.  The user or any process
situated at any machine can run a program residing in any second
machine on any third machine.  NFS is not required.  The user or
any process can kill any other process.

An executable may reside in the target node's file space or LAM can
transfer the file from a third node.

I/O

When NFS or friends are not readily available, LAM has a set of
functions that mirror the POSIX functions and provide remote
access to the filesystem of other machines.

User Interface

LAM's UI is just your usual shell.  There is no special environment,
only a set of utility programs.

Documentation

There are user guides for C and Fortran programmers as well as
a complete set of manual pages covering every function and command program.

-=-

LAM is a subset of Trollius, an environment for UNIX clusters + MPP.
Trollius was originally developed at the Cornell Theory Center.
Trollius is a trademark of The Ohio State University and the Cornell
Research Foundation.

The MPI implementation is based in part on the implementation provided
by Argonne National Laboratory and Mississippi State University.

LAM development was sponsored by OSC, OSU, Cray Research Inc., and
Alex Informatique.