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Types of Parallel Computing

A mindmap.

Multiple computers

Grid Computing

  • Generally, each node performs a different task/application
  • Generally, more heterogeneous
    • Geolocationally, sometimes across regions / companies / institutions
    • In terms of hardware components
  • (job schedulers)
    • Oracle Grid Engine / Sun Grid Engine (SGE) / Computing in Distributed Networked Environments (CODINE) / Global Resource Director (GRD)
    • Univa Grid Engine (UGE)

Cluster Computing

  • Generally, all nodes perform same/similar tasks
  • Generally, more homogeneous
    • Usually connected by LAN
    • Geolocationally, often same server stack
  • May be viewed as a single computer at times

Single Computer

  • Multiprocessing: Using >1 (Cores of) CPUs
  • Multithreading: Using only one (core of) CPU
    • Interleaved/Temporal multithreading
      • Coarse-grained / block / cooperative multithreading: Run till you need to wait (say, for memory), then I’ll let other thread run
      • Interleaved multithreading: you walk a step, then someone else, then you, then someone else…
    • Simultaneous multithreading (SMT): exploit parallelism available across multiple threads to decrease the waste associated with unused issue slots
  • General-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU)