MasPar Clients

Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory (LBL)
Source: www.lbl.gov July 16, 1993

LBL has purchased its first supercomputer, a MasPar MP-2 massively parallel processing system. Equipped with 4,096 processors, the MasPar is the Laboratory's most important computer acquisition in a decade. Information and Computing Sciences Division Director Stu Loken says that up until now, LBL researchers either have devised ways to solve problems without supercomputers or have accessed supercomputers elsewhere. Because these machines have been so expensive, relatively few exist, and time on them is difficult to book. Loken says the Laboratory's MasPar acquisition creates new opportunities for LBL researchers, providing them readily accessible state-of-the-art computing resources.

The proliferation of research images and video was one of the chief reasons the MasPar was purchased. When video cameras are used to capture data, vast amounts of digital information - 30 frames per second or the equivalent of more than 2000 pages of words a second -- are generated. This digital flow must be processed and stored by a computer with a high-speed input/output interface as well as the ability to do video image processing. Loken says the MasPar is the best machine available to process and analyze visual scientific data -- everything from sky maps charting the structure of the early universe to medical images showing the neurochemistry in Alzheimer's patients.

According to ICSD's Bill Johnston, who heads a team that is creating new hardware and software for the processing and analysis of a visual data stream over high-speed networks, the MasPar will significantly enhance the capacities of the Lab's distributed computing environment. LBL has played a pioneering role in the development of distributed scientific computing, forging new links that make the location of expensive computing resources immaterial.

In a distributed system, high speed networks can be used to tie together hardware and researchers around the country, connecting them to distant experimental facilities. The MasPar can help the Lab realize its vision of opening the Advanced Light Source to scientists working at remote locations around the world.

The technical specifications of the MasPar are impressive. A massively parallel Single Instruction Multiple Data computer, the MasPar has 4,096 32-bit processors that deliver peak performance of 17,000 million instructions per second. The supercomputer is capable of transferring data at rates of up to one gigabyte/second. The MasPar's input/output subsystem includes an 11 gigabyte RAID disk storage array which can transfer data at sustained rates of 18 megabytes/second. Users on the HiPPI network, to which the MasPar is connected, can transfer data as fast as 800 megabits/second. Despite capabilities that a decade ago were almost unimaginable, nobody yet knows how to instruct this supercomputer or any other to search a large image database. LBL is collaborating with the Sunnyvale-based MasPar Computer Corporation to develop technology to do this.

Massively parallel supercomputers like LBL's new MasPar MP-2 come with a reputation that precedes them. People have spent years learning how to program computers which run through the program code sequentially, one step at a time. To program a parallel system, they must write code for thousands of processors that work in lockstep.

The people who support the MasPar admit that this transition is daunting but insist that researchers weigh this challenge against the prospective rewards and inherent advantages of computing on a machine with 4,096 processors working in unison.

The MasPar's forte is using its 4096 processors to run a succession of identical or mostly identical operations as in the example above, involving image processing. If you must run a series of different operations on each pixel, then don't use the MasPar.

Other Clients
The client base for these systems have been mostly research institutions, universities, and government organizations. NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre, U.S. Army, etc. Unfortunately, since this company no longer exists and most of these systems are no longer used, it's difficult to establish who purchased them.