DARPA Data Reorganization Standards Effort Minutes

November 5, 1997
Held at MITRE, Bedford, MA
Local Host: Arkady Kanevsky

Attendance List:

NAMEORGANIZATIONEMAIL ADDRESS
Anna RounbehlerRaytheonAnna_C_Rounbehler@res.raytheon.com
Richard SteinbergerLockheed Martin GESrsteinbe@motown.lmco.com
Bob GraybillLockheed Martin GESrgraybil@motown.lmco.com
Rick PancoastLockheed Martin GESrick.pancoast@lmco.com
Myra Jean PrelleMercurymjp@mc.com
Richard GamesMITRErg@mitre.org
Marvin KuzmitzNUVC/Nptkuzmitz_marvin_l@code21.npt.nvwc.navy.mil
Arkady KanevskyMITREarkady@mitre.org
Ken CainMITREkcain@mitre.org
Paul HarmonLicoln Laboratoryharmon@ll.mit.edu
Steve PaavolaSky Computerspaavola@sky.com
Jon GreeneMercurygreene@mc.com
Sharon SaccoCSPIssacco@cspi.com
Thomas RobeyKhoral Researchtrobey@khoral.com
Clay Taylor, Jr.MPI Soft. Tech., Inccdtaylor@mpi-softtech.com
Anthony SkjellumMPI Soft. Tech., Inctony@mpi-softtech.com
Arlan PoolMercuryalp@mc.com
Randall JuddSPAWARSYSCEN S.D.judd@spawar.navy.mil
Dennis CottelSPAWARSYSCEN S.D.dennis@spawar.navy.mil
Michael Grieco(ASEC) NSA K41mjgrieco@jswg.org

Minutes:

The meeting came to order at 9:00am

Skjellum

Introduction to the meeting, discussed meeting rules, some Data-Reorganization philosophy, and the agenda for the day.

[Not yet available on the web page]

Rounbehler

Discussion on MPI/RT based approach.

[Not yet available on the web page]

Games

Voiced concerns on how an individual parallel topology would be mapped to a particular problem's data space. How will the developer use an API to deal with the problem of a system with contiguous or distributed memory.

There was much discussion on this topic including input from Green, Cottel.

Green

Discussed mapping slices and tiles. Introduced the idea of irregular partitioning of the data cube.

Cottel

Pointed out cases of data independance between slices in a data cube.

Lunch break

Skjellum

Opened afternoon discussion.

Paavola

How will the data accessed, considered as contiguous or as distributed. Indicated that the required data space may not fit on one node, so how would gather operations be achieved.

More discussion, including the possibility of "out-of-core" but "out-of-core" is probably not in the scope of this meeting. Also methods of data transfer were discussed. There is a need to reference current research articles on the corner-turn operation.

Further discussion ensued about the possibility of bulk memories, SMP's, and other client-server type modes of data reorganization, in addition to the clique and bi-partite graph models that everyone is most familiar with. It was discussed that the scope would ultimately have to be limited, but no decisions were made as yet.

It was agreed to have several further meetings, up to the deadline of September 30, 1998 for completion of report. Meetings were tentatively scheduled for January (January 13, Albuquerque is now final), March/April, May, July, September, with interest in holding one of the meetings at Mercury Computer Systems (they volunteered), and the final meeting in the DC area (eg, STA) in order to provide feedback to the sponsors and others in the DC area. The MITRE host agreed to host the other meetings in the Boston area. Several would be juxtaposed to MPI/RT meetings for convenience and cost savings.


Please forward any questions/comments/corrections/suggestions to
cdtaylor@mpi-softtech.com (Clayborne Taylor, Jr.)