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Syllabus Parallel Computing

This document outlines the syllabus for a parallel computing course taught in spring 2013. It provides information on course topics, prerequisites, textbooks, assignments, schedule, grading, policies, and learning outcomes. Key topics covered include parallel architectures, programming models like MPI and CUDA, file systems, performance analysis, and applications. Assignments include programming homework and lecture summaries. The course aims to teach students how to apply parallel concepts to optimize programs for different architectures.

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Pawan Dwivedi
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235 views

Syllabus Parallel Computing

This document outlines the syllabus for a parallel computing course taught in spring 2013. It provides information on course topics, prerequisites, textbooks, assignments, schedule, grading, policies, and learning outcomes. Key topics covered include parallel architectures, programming models like MPI and CUDA, file systems, performance analysis, and applications. Assignments include programming homework and lecture summaries. The course aims to teach students how to apply parallel concepts to optimize programs for different architectures.

Uploaded by

Pawan Dwivedi
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Spring 2013 Syllabus for: CSCI 6360: Parallel Computing CSCI 4320: Parallel Programming

Prof. Christopher D. Carothers Department of Computer Science Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 110 8th Street Troy, New York 12180 e-mail: [email protected] course website: www.cs.rpi.edu/chrisc/COURSES/PARALLEL/SPRING-2013/index.html phone: (518) 276-2930 fax: (518) 276-4108 Ofce Hours: MRC 309a, Tuesday and Friday, 2 to 4 p.m. and by appointment. Class Time and Location: West Hall Auditorium, Tuesdays and Fridays, Noon to 1:30 p.m. January 22, 2013

1 Course Description and Textbook Information


This course is an introduction to parallel computing and programming. Topics include, but are not exclusively limited to: Introduction and Motivation: Amdahls Law, and review of uni-processor memory and CPU organization. Parallel architectures: Message passing, shared-memory system, vector/SIMD and communications networks. Parallel Programming: Message Passing Interface (MPI), Pthreads, OpenMP, CUDA. Parallel Filesystems: MPI File interface. Performance Analysis Tools: Tau. Partitioned Global Address Languages: UPC and ZPL. Other Parallel Programming Paradigms: MapReduce, Transactional Memory. Fault Tolerance Applications: Computational Fluid Dynamics, Mesh Adaptivity and Parallel Discrete-Event Simulation, Electronic Design Automation.

1.1 Prerequisite
The principle prerequisite for this class is CSCI 2500, Computer Organization. However, I understand that many of you come from elds of study that are outside of Computer Science. So below I have listed some prerequisites and course assumptions: Some programming experience in Fortran, C, C++. Java is great but not for HPC. You will have a choice to do your assignment in C, C++ or Fortran subject to the language support of the programming paradigm. This course assumes you have never touched a parallel or distributed computer. However, we do assume you have touched a computer and have some knowledge of Linux/Unix as all of our parallel computing systems only use the Linux OS. You should possess a strong desire and love to write software. While both theory and practice are presented in lecture, the class assignments and group project is focused on getting real programs to execute in parallel such that performance improvement is demonstrated.

1.2 Optional Textbooks


Introduction to Parallel Computing, by Grama, Gupta, Karypis and Kumar. Make sure you have the 2nd edition. This book is available online at Amazon.com. Programming Massively Parallel Processors, by Kirk and Hwu. Available as an ebook, http://www.elsevierdirect.com/product.jsp?isbn=9780123814722. Note, if your research project will deal heavily with GPUs, you should consider investing in this textbook. An Introduction to Parallel Programming, by Peter S. Pancheo, 2011.

2 Performance Expectations
As a professor, student adviser and course instructor, I get asked, Is Parallel Computing/Programming Hard?. If you like writing software and you enjoy the challenging task of debugging programs that have a non-deterministic execution order when not properly made to execute in parallel, this is the course for you. Also, if you are a performance junky and like to tweak programs to make them run as fast as possible, this course is for you. If you are a weak programmer or you do not really enjoy writing software, then I would say this course is probably not your cup of tea. If you nd yourself getting deadlocked (pun intended) on an assignment and you are unable to make progress, please contact Prof. Carothers early. Do not wait until the last minute. Also, do not try to stay up all night in a marathon debugging session. Try to work smarter by asking questions and getting help from the instructor and our class TA.

3 Graduate Teaching Assistants


We have 2 Graduate TAs assigned to our class. All ofce hours are typically held in the Amos Eaton, room 217, unless otherwise specied by the TA. 1. Justin Lapre. Email: [email protected]. Ofce hours: TBD. in MRC 309b.

4 Course Format and Schedule of Topics


This course is largely a lecture format where class readings will come from the conference, journal articles and technical reports. The anticipated order of topics is: Introduction and Motivation: Amdahls Law, and review of uni-processor memory and CPU organization. Parallel architectures: Message passing, shared-memory system, vector/SIMD and communications networks. Parallel Programming: Message Passing Interface (MPI), Pthreads, CUDA. Parallel Filesystems: MPI File interface. Performance Analysis Tools: Tau. Partitioned Global Address Languages: UPC and ZPL. Other Parallel Programming Paradigms: MapReduce, Transactional Memory. Fault Tolerance Applications: Computational Fluid Dynamics, Mesh Adaptivity and Parallel Discrete-Event simulation, Electronic Design Automation.

5 Schedule of Homeworks and Quizzes and NO CLASS days


The approximate schedule of class assignments is as follows: Assignment 1 assigned on Friday, January 25th due on Friday, February 1th. Assignment 2 assigned on Friday, February 1st due on Frida, February 15th. Assignment 3 assigned on Friday, February 15th due on Friday, March 1st. Assignment 4 assigned on Friday, March 1st due on Tuesday, March 19th. Assignment 5 assigned on Tuesday, March 19th due on Friday, March 29th. Assignment 6 assigned on Friday, March 29th due on Friday, April 12th. 3

Project assigned on Friday, April 12th due on Tuesday, May 8th. The NO CLASS days are as follows: Tuesday, March 12th SPRING BREAK. Friday, March 15th SPRING BREAK. Note that Tuesday, May 7th is the last day of class.

6 Grading and Other Class Policies


48%: 6 programming assignments worth 8 pts each. 22%: 22 reading/lecture summaries (across 27 lectures) each counts 1pt. 30%: Group project. Attendance Policy: Attendance at lectures is not required, but it will be very hard to write the summary without having attended lecture. Late Assignments Policy: Late assignments and summaries will not be graded. You will get a zero for that assignment, except under extenuating circumstances, such as illness, family death etc. If you are ill, please be prepared to provide a note from the health center or your own family physician. Grade Modiers Policy: Grade modiers will be used in this class. Nominally, for example, you expect to earn a B- if your score is greater than 79.5 and less than 83.0, B if your score is greater than 83 and less than 86, B+ if your score is greater than 86 and less than 89.5. The similar modier points occur for the A, C and D ranges except that there is no A+ nor is a D- allowed under the RPI Grade Modier Policy. Assignment Grading Criteria: Programming assignments are graded as follows: 15% for proper comments (e.g., each function should indicate what it does) and 85% for a correct working implementation. We typically divide the correctness points over key functions working. For example, le reading - worth 10 points, le writing worth 10 points, and then doing the calculation correctly worth 65 points. Note that programs that either dont compile or generate a core dump typically get no more than 20 points of the 85. Thus, your max score for a properly commented program that fails in some fundamental way is only 35 points even if you spent 100 hours of time on it. Non-programming assignments/homeworks are graded on a per-problems basis. Typically 5 problems will be given and each is worth 20 points.

7 Academic Integrity
While I strongly encourage you to form study groups and work together in learning this material, the programming assignments are to be done individually unless otherwise noted by the assignment/project specication. What this means is that you should do whatever is necessary to ensure your work remains your work. For example, in doing programming 4

assignments you might want to prepend variable names with your initials. If during in the grading process, it is determined that students shared or duplicated work, those students will automatically take a zero for the offense plus a 5 point total average deduction. For a second offense, the student or students involved will fail this course and a report will be sent to the Dean of Students ofce which could result in additional disciplinary action.

8 Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, you will be able to: 1. Apply the concept of the Amdahls Law to the estimation of the fraction of a program that can be serialized and still yield a good speedup / program performance improvement. 2. Apply the concepts of a Parallel Computer Architecture by creating a parallel program that will maximize the performance of the parallel program when executed on that class of parallel computing systems. 3. Apply the concepts of Message Passing to the creation of a program that executes efciently on this class of parallel computer architecture. 4. Apply the concepts of Threads to the creation of a program that executes efciently on this class of parallel computer architecture. 5. Apply the concepts of CUDA to the creation of a program that executes efciently on this class of parallel computer architecture. 6. Apply the concepts of Parallel File I/O to the creation of a parallel program that efciently reads and writes data to disk. 7. Apply the concepts of Fault Tolerance to the creation of a parallel program that will checkpoint its state and enable the ability to be re-started at some point in its execution cycle near to when it failed.. 8. Apply the concepts of Performance to the analysis of computer performance problems. 9. Apply the concepts of Performance Counters to the analysis of parallel program performance.

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