gridMathematica
| gridMathematica | |
|---|---|
| File:WolframSpikeyVersion7.png | |
| Developer(s) | Wolfram Research |
| Operating system | Cross-platform (list) |
| Available in | English |
| Type | Parallel computation |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | gridMathematica homepage |
gridMathematica is a software product sold by Wolfram Research which extends the parallel processing capabilities of its main product Mathematica[1].
Features
gridMathematica increases the number of parallel processes that a Mathematica license can run at once. Each parallel process applies an additional CPU to a task. A standard Mathematica license can run four parallel tasks at once. By increasing the number of tasks available, some types of problems can be solved in less time.[2]
Standard Mathematica consists of three components: A front end which provides the user interface, a controlling process (the control kernel) which distributes tasks, and four compute kernels which take instruction from the control kernel and perform distributed computations. gridMathematica allows additional compute kernels to be used.
gridMathematica is available in two options. The "gridMathematica Local" option allows the use of 8 compute kernels on a single-machine. The "gridMathematica Server" option provides the ability to use 16 compute kernels from more than one computer.
Mathematica manages the interprocess communication such as queueing, virtual shared memory, and failure recovery.[3]
gridMathematica scales to larger grid systems with purchases of additional Compute Kernels. Worker processes can be located on a single multi processor computer or distributed over a remote heterogenious network.[4][5] and includes 64bit platforms [6] The communication between the kernels and the front end uses the Mathlink interface, which is an interface designed to allow external programs to communicate with Mathematica. The communication is over TCP/IP [7] and would use SSH or RSH for authentication.
History
Before the release of Mathematica 7, gridMathematica and the now discontinued Mathematica Personal Grid Edition were the only versions of Mathematica to provide parallel computation. They worked as stand-alone products including Front End and Control Kernels and the Parallel Computing Toolkit developed by Roman Maeder, one of the original authors of Mathematica. With the release of Mathematica 7, the parallel programming tools were redesigned and included in Mathematica [8], and gridMathematica was redesigned to work directly with Mathematica. [9]
See also
References
- ^ Wolfram Research introduces gridMathematica 7 MacTech
- ^ Felix Grant tests out some of Wolfram's spin-off products, which aim to push the company into new markets, Scientific Computing World, June 2003.
- ^ gridMathematica offers parallel computing solution, Dennis Sellers, MacWorld, November 20, 2002
- ^ Proceedings of the 2006 ACM/IEEE conference on Supercomputing Roman Maeder
- ^ Wolfram Research Announces the release ofgridMathematica GRIDToday Dec 2002
- ^ gridMathematica 2.2 Scientific Computing World September 2007
- ^ GridMathematika / Benchmark Tests by M.Karbalai, H.Schönau, 9/14/2006.
- ^ Mathematica 7: A Review Mike Riley, Dr Dobb's
- ^ gridMathematica 7 enhances parallel computing MacNN
External links
- An interview with Schoeller Porter, Senior Software Engineer at Wolfram Research by Ken Farmer, WinHPC.org, Monday October 30 2006.
- Exploration of the capabilities of gridMathematica on the Altix ia64 HPC machines, University of Queensland VisLab.
- Special Projects: An Evaluation of Modified Newtonian Dynamics by Simulation in a Parallel Computing Environment, Furman University Physics Department.
- Getting on the Grid, by Jean Thilmany, Mechanical Engineering, 2003.
- a real-time monitor of gridMathematica's usage on the TSUBAME supercomputer in Japan
- online recorded seminar
- King's College London Centre for Financial Grid Computing