Overview On Rs/6000 Sp And Clustered ^ Pseries - IBM RS/6000 SP Handbook

1.1 Overview on RS/6000 SP and Clustered ^
pSeries
The RS/6000 SP system simultaneously brings dozens to hundreds of RISC
processor nodes to a computing problem. Its parallel processing capability
enhances computing performance and throughput many times in comparison to
serial computing. In addition to helping improve the performance of existing
applications, new applications, like complex data mining and modeling of the
universe, are now possible.
The basic SP building block is the processor node. It consists of a POWER3 or
PowerPC Symmetric Multiprocessors (SMP), memory, Peripheral Component
Interconnect (PCI) expansion slots for Input/Output (I/O) and connectivity, and
disk devices. The three types of nodes (thin, wide, and high) may be mixed in a
system and are housed in a short (1.25 m) or tall (1.93 m) system frames.
Depending on the type of nodes used, an SP tall frame can contain up to 16
nodes and an SP short frame can contain up to 8 nodes. These frames can be
interconnected to form a system with up to 128 nodes (512 by special order).
Each node contains its own copy of the AIX operating system.
The 222 MHz/375 MHz POWER3 SMP nodes, are powered by the same
POWER3 processor technology introduced with the RS/6000 43P model
260/270 workstation. Hence, all applications that run on the 43P model 260/270
should run unchanged on a single node of the SP system. For example,
Environmental Systems Research Institute, without having tested their
applications specifically on the POWER3 SMP node, has stated that their
applications set ARC/INFO, ArcView, SDE, and IMS works fine on this SP node.
The 332 MHz SMP nodes are powered by the PowerPC 604e processor. They
represent the first general availability of the advanced technology used in the SP
system IBM has delivered to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as part of
the Department of Energy's Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI)
project. This system (at the time of this writing, already upgraded to POWER3
nodes), performs the complex calculations required for the simulation to predict
the performance, safety, reliability, and manufacturability of the U.S. nuclear
stockpile.
The system is managed by the AIX operating system and the Parallel Systems
Support Programs for AIX (PSSP) management software, from a single point of
control, a pSeries or an RS/6000 system, called Control Workstation (CWS).
2 RS/6000 SP and Clustered IBM ^ pSeries Systems Handbook