Project Title: Parallel processing using an 8-node Beowulf parallel computer.
Project Code: MAM11.

The Beowulf is a cluster computer system that consists of a switched LAN with a number of computing nodes. The Beowulf is operated as a Single System Image with Linux as the OS. The {\em Parallel Virtual Machine} (PVM) is a message-passing library that allows the processors to communicate with each other during a parallel computation. PVM has a set of standard commands to send a message from one process to another with multicast and broadcast capabilities. This allows implementing the {\em single-program multiple-data} (SPMD) concept for which the same code is simultaneously run over different segments of the data with the objective to reduce the execution time. The project in on: (1) learning how to operate the beowulf, (2) learning about PVM library, and (3) developing a parallel application on the Beowulf. The application can be one or more simple benchmarks that require to be parallelized after inserting the PVM communication functions at the specific input and output points. The student will evaluate the profitability of the Beowulf by showing the execution time which will be reduced when increasing the number of processors (up to 8) participating in the parallel computation.