This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I Project from Systran Corporation will determine the feasibility of constructing a dual-network PC cluster utilizing both networking technologies to achieve very low latency for synchronizing communication and providing wide bandwidth for bulk data transfer. Upon proving the feasibility of this proposed concept we will develop a new product which takes advantage of two existing families of Systran's networking technologies: SCRAMNet and FibreXpress. SCRAMNet (Shared Common RAM Network) is a replicated shared memory network, which features ultra-low latency communications, (i.e., network communications at memory access latencies). FibreXpress is an implementation of ANSI standard Fibre Channel, which offers very high bandwidths (1-Gb/sec is available already with 4-Gb/sec predicted by the year 2000). This research project offers to take advantage of both the economies of scale of mass-market commodity PC class microprocessors and off-the-shelf networking technology This combination could make networks of PCs an attractive paradigm for achieving scalable parallel computing environments. The low cost of modern interconnection network components (network interface cards, hubs, cabling etc.) open the possibility of using multiple different networking technologies simultaneously, each to their best advantage. The prototype product that will be developed during the next phase of this research will be primarily aimed at customers who are using compute-intensive MPI-based parallel software. These customers range from commercial companies (such as, pharmaceutical companies who are performing ab initio calculations for drug design) to government customers (such as, Air Force Labs, which are performing large scale fluid flow calculations). The expectation of this project is a high level of performance, which rivals multi-processor supercomputers at a fraction of the cost. - ? ª ª ¸Ñ¸ CJ OJ QJ 6 ¼CJ CJ x ª ª ¸ ¸ ¸ Ñ Ñ ¸ ªf x ª ª Ãf/ ÃÛ=!Ã- `Ã- #+- $+- %à ( $ @¹+ $ N o r m a l mH < A@ +- < D e f a u l t P a r a g r a p h F o n t ª ++++ ª ª ª _ ª ++ K a t e O a k e s , C L M - 0 5 S B I R _ D B A b s t r a c t P h I 9 7 9 7 6 1 3 1 8 . d o c C . D e n v e r L o v e t t , C L M - 0 5 S B I R _ D B A b s t r a c t P h I 9 7 9 7 6 1 3 1 8 . d o c +@HP LaserJet 5P (Copy 2) LPT1: HPPCL5MS HP LaserJet 5P HP LaserJet 5P (Copy 2) ` @ g ? ú X X @ MSUDN HP LaserJet 5P Þ ; d HP LaserJet 5P (Copy 2) ` @ g ? ú X X @ MSUDN HP LaserJet 5P Þ ; d à ª ª Ù9 + + ª ? ª ` @ G + T i m e s N e w R o m a n 5 + à S y m b o l 3&+ A r i a l C`+ M S S a n s S e r i f f -4 &1ª f'ª f Y Y ª ª - ¢ ¢ à 0 F ++ * * * K a t e O a k e s C . D e n v e r L o v e t t
