PARDISC: a cost effective model for parallel and distributed computing

A homogeneous system of PCs, workstations, minicomputers etc., connected together via a local area network or wide area network represents a large pool of computational power. However, in a network of PCs and workstations, transparency is not provided and hence, users are aware of other machines. PARDISC is a parallel programming environment, which provides the needed transparency as a scalable OpenFrame Computing Model. PARDISC stands for PARallel and DIStributed Computing on a homogeneous network. It supports three models of computing by providing the functionalities required to view any homogeneous network as a Loosely Coupled Parallel Computer, Processor Pool Architecture, or Cluster of Workstations. PARDISC aims at providing a cost effective parallel and distributed programming environment to the academic and R&D institutions, since it employs the existing well established Local Area Network (LAN) and models it to support both the paradigms. This paper presents an overview of PARDISC along with its architecture and design. It discusses how PARDISC can be used to configure the network as a loosely coupled parallel machine, processor pool architecture, and distributed computing environment with Logical Network Connectivity. Software architecture discusses configuration servers, client processes, processor pool servers, and process communication interface of PARDISC. We end the paper with a description of some issues involved in its implementation on UNIX platform, and its suitability for parallel programming.