Performance of the NAS Parallel Benchmarks on PVM-Based Networks

The NAS parallel benchmarks are a set of applications that embody the key characteristics of typical processing in computational aerodynamics. Five of these, the kernel benchmarks, have been implemented on the PVM system, a software system for network-based concurrent computing, with a view to determining the efficacy of networked environments for high-performance computational aerodynamics applications. We present results of porting and executing the NPB kernels in three different duster environments using low- to medium-powered workstations on Ethernet and two types of FDDI networks. Our results indicate that mediocre to good performance could be obtained despite the communications-intensive nature of the applications. In most cases, we were able to achieve performance levels within an order of magnitude of a Cray Y/MP-1 on eight-workstation clusters via optimizations to the PVM infrastructure alone, i.e., with little or no algorithmic modifications. However, our results also indicate that further improvements are possible and that network-based computing has the potential to be a viable technology for high-performance scientific computing.