Parallel computing on Xenodes
for two reasons:
1) If I ever have access to a non-SMP distributed computing cluster (i.e., another Xenode on a separate physical computer) I can switch from BSPlib to BSPonMPI
and won't have to change my code or computing model.
2) Konrad Hinsen's Scientific Python:
directly supports BSP for Python parallel computing:
as well as the more difficult-to-program MPI parallel paradigm.
James
4 Replies
All the servers will be massively multicore in a few years. Am I the only one trying to prepare for parallel computing here? We already have 4-core SMP virtual servers at Linode today.
Forked multiprocess programming is simpler than parallel computing (and lends itself to different operations than pure number crunching), but I want to get the more difficult stuff out of the way first.
James
@zunzun:
[insert sound of crickets chirping in an empty field]
All the servers will be massively multicore in a few years. Am I the only one trying to prepare for parallel computing here?
No, but perhaps you're the only one trying to do it within Python. I use MPI with C/C++.
I'd argue, though, that most people won't need to use an external library to take advantage of multiple cores. The languages and their run-times will evolve to support it. Either that or new languages will take their place.
@rhashimoto:
…perhaps you're the only one trying to do it within Python. I use MPI with C/C++.
Good point, I didn't think of that. We use C# for SMP parallel processing at my day job.
James
I'm now checking "parallel python" at
James