Machine type: RISC-based distributed-memory multi-processor.
Models: AlphaServer 8200 5/300, 8400 5/300.
Operating system: Digital Unix (DEC's flavour of Unix).
Connection structure: Crossbar.
Compilers: Fortran 77, HPF, C, C++.
Vendors information Web page: http://www.digital.com:80/info/hpc.
System parameters:
Remarks:
The AlphaServers are symmetric multi-processing systems which are based on the Alpha 21164 processor. The 8200 model is a somewhat smaller copy of the 8400 model: in the 8200 a maximum of 6 CPUs can be accomodated while this number is 12 for the 8400 model. Also, there is room for at most 6 GB of memory in the 8200 while the 8400 can house 14 GB. However, the amount of CPUs and memory is not independent. For instance, the 8400 has 9 system slots. One of these is reserved for I/O and one will have to contain at least one CPU module which can contain 1 or 2 CPUs. From the remaining slots 6 can be used either for memory or for a CPU module. So, one has to choose for either higher computational power or for more memory. This can potentially be a problem for large applications that require both.
As with the SGI PowerChallenge (see 3.3.6), AlphaServers can be clustered using a PCI bus Memory channel for interconnection of the systems. The systems need not be of the same model. The bandwidth of this interconnect is 100 MB/s. Eight systems can be coupled in this way. To support this kind of cluster computing, HPF and optimised versions of PVM and MPI are available.
Measured Performances: As yet, only single system results for the
AlphaServer 8400 are available. No cluster results are known. In [#linpackbm#
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Up: Shared-memory MIMD systems
Previous: The HP/Convex C4 series.
Jack Dongarra
Sat Feb 10 15:12:38 EST 1996