Massively parallel is the term for using a large number of

computer processor In computing and computer science, a processor or processing unit is an electrical component (digital circuit) that performs operations on an external data source, usually memory or some other data stream. It typically takes the form of a micropr ...

s (or separate computers) to simultaneously perform a set of coordinated computations in parallel. GPUs are massively parallel architecture with tens of thousands of threads. One approach is grid computing, where the

processing power In computing, computer performance is the amount of useful work accomplished by a computer system. Outside of specific contexts, computer performance is estimated in terms of accuracy, efficiency and speed of executing computer program instruction ...

of many computers in distributed, diverse administrative domains is opportunistically used whenever a computer is available.''Grid computing: experiment management, tool integration, and scientific workflows'' by Radu Prodan, Thomas Fahringer 2007 pages 1–4 An example is

BOINC The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC, pronounced – rhymes with "oink") is an open-source middleware system for volunteer computing (a type of distributed computing). Developed originally to support SETI@home, it beca ...

, a volunteer-based, opportunistic grid system, whereby the grid provides power only on a best effort basis.''Parallel and Distributed Computational Intelligence'' by Francisco Fernández de Vega 2010 pages 65–68 Another approach is grouping many processors in close proximity to each other, as in a computer cluster. In such a centralized system the speed and flexibility of the

interconnect In telecommunications, interconnection is the physical linking of a carrier's network with equipment or facilities not belonging to that network. The term may refer to a connection between a carrier's facilities and the equipment belonging to ...

becomes very important, and modern supercomputers have used various approaches ranging from enhanced

InfiniBand InfiniBand (IB) is a computer networking communications standard used in high-performance computing that features very high throughput and very low latency. It is used for data interconnect both among and within computers. InfiniBand is also use ...

systems to three-dimensional

torus interconnect A torus interconnect is a switch-less network topology for connecting processing nodes in a parallel computer system. Introduction In geometry, a torus is created by revolving a circle about an axis coplanar to the circle. While this is a ...

s.Knight, Will: "IBM creates world's most powerful computer", ''NewScientist.com news service'', June 2007 The term also applies to

massively parallel processor array A massively parallel processor array, also known as a multi purpose processor array (MPPA) is a type of integrated circuit which has a massively parallel array of hundreds or thousands of CPUs and RAM memories. These processors pass work to one an ...

s (MPPAs), a type of integrated circuit with an array of hundreds or thousands of central processing units (CPUs) and

random-access memory Random-access memory (RAM; ) is a form of computer memory that can be read and changed in any order, typically used to store working data and machine code. A random-access memory device allows data items to be read or written in almost the ...

(RAM) banks. These processors pass work to one another through a reconfigurable interconnect of channels. By harnessing many processors working in parallel, an MPPA chip can accomplish more demanding tasks than conventional chips. MPPAs are based on a software parallel programming model for developing high-performance embedded system applications.

Goodyear MPP The Goodyear Massively Parallel Processor (MPP) was a massively parallel processing supercomputer built by Goodyear Aerospace for the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. It was designed to deliver enormous computational power at lower cost than oth ...

was an early implementation of a massively parallel computer architecture. MPP architectures are the second most common supercomputer implementations after clusters, as of November 2013.

Data warehouse appliance In computing, the term data warehouse appliance (DWA) was coined by Foster Hinshaw for a computer architecture for data warehouses (DW) specifically marketed for big data analysis and discovery that is simple to use (not a pre-configuration) and ha ...

s such as

Teradata Teradata Corporation is an American software company that provides cloud database and analytics-related software, products, and services. The company was formed in 1979 in Brentwood, California, as a collaboration between researchers at Caltech ...

, Netezza or

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

's PDW commonly implement an MPP architecture to handle the processing of very large amounts of data in parallel.

References

{{Parallel computing Parallel computing Supercomputing

See also

References