Exploring cosmology applications on distributed environments

• Published in: Future generation computer systems Vol. 19; no. 6; pp. 839 - 847
• Main Authors: Lan, Zhiling, Taylor, Valerie E., Bryan, Greg
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01-08-2003
• Subjects: Cosmology application; Distributed systems; Dynamic load balancing; Network requirement; Cosmology application; Distributed systems; Dynamic load balancing; Network requirement
• ISSN: 0167-739X; 1872-7115
• DOI: 10.1016/S0167-739X(03)00064-5

A typical cosmological simulation requires a large amount of compute power, which is hard to satisfy with a single machine. Distributed systems provide the opportunity to execute such large-scale applications. As part of the iGrid Research Demonstration 2002, we explored a large-scale cosmology application on a distributed system composed of two supercomputers: one located in the Netherlands and the other in the United States. Our demo consisted of two parts: a distributed computing of the cosmology application and a visualization demonstration of the computational results. Our ultimate goal was to demonstrate the great potential of using distributed resources for large-scale applications, in particular cosmological applications, and further discuss the network requirements for efficient execution of such large-scale applications on distributed systems.