Machine Description

The model machine mentioned in section 1.1 is a high performance machine from Silicon Graphics Inc (Origin 2000). The It is an 24-processor hypercube-based shared-memory NUMA machine. The conceptual diagram is as given below

              /------------------------------------\
              |           Shared Memory            |
              |                                    |
              \------------------------------------/
                              | |
                              | |
             |--------------------------------------|
             |----HYPERCUBE INTERCONNECT------------|
               |     |                         |      
               |     |                         |    
              ---   ---                       ---   
              |P|   |P|                       |P|   
              |0|   |1|                       |2|  
              | |   | | ..................... |4|  
              ---   ---                       ---

As shown, all processors have access to the global memory (composed of local memory of each CPUs0. Hence it can be used for for messaging or data transfer. The operating system is referred to as ``IRIX", which is a version of AT&T's System V.3 UNIX OS with Berkeley BSD 4.3 extensions. Hence all the UNIX commands discussed in Chapter 1 can be used directly on IRIX.