High performance computing on networks of workstations through the exploitation of function parallelism

Network of workstations (NOW) has become a widely accepted form of high-per formance parallel computing. As in conventional multicomputers, parallel pr ograms running on such a platform are often written in an SPMD form to expl oit data parallelism. Each workstation in a NOW is treated similarly to a p rocessing element in a multicomputer system. However, workstations are far more powerful and flexible than the processing elements in conventional mul ticomputers. In this paper, we discuss how workstations in a NOW can be use d to exploit more parallelism in an SPMD program, especially those induced from concurrent activities. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reser ved.