TFCC Newsletter Volume 1, Number 1, April, 1999

Announcements about TFCC Activities and Achievements

• An invited talk by TFCC Co-Chair Mark Baker at the PC-NOW'99 Workshop (part of the IPPS/SPDP'99 Symposium, held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, April 16th 1999) will introduce the new IEEE Task Force on Cluster Computing. This will represent the first opportunity for people interested in the activity of the Task Force to meet. You can view his 46 slides at http://www.dcs.port.ac.uk/~mab/Talks/Puerto-Rico/PC-NOW/

  URL: http://www.disi.unige.it/person/ChiolaG/pc-now99/program.html

• TFCC Co-Chair Rajkumar Buyya writes
  "As you know one of TFCC's goals is to promote: Cluster Computing Education around the world. We are working on building a cluster computing education web site providing pointers to information related to:
  - Cluster books
  - Cluster journals
  - Cluster computing related papers
  - Cluster Resources
  - Cluster Projects
  TFCC-Education Coordinator, Professor Barry Wilkinson, Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, has done a great job with his TFCC Technical Area Education web site recently. Take a look!"

• TFCC Co-Chair Rajkumar Buyya also announced the TFCC-Education Promotion Program -- Book Donation
  Prentice Hall has agreed to donate books worth $2600 (US) to TFCC. That is, they are donating 25 copies each of the following to TFCC!
  • High Performance Cluster Computing: Architectures and Systems, Vol.1, Prentice Hall PTR, NJ, USA, 1999. (to be released soon)

  • High Performance Cluster Computing: Programming and Applications, Vol.2, Prentice Hall PTR, NJ, USA, 1999. (to be released soon)

  To see if you qualify, visit Raj's Announcement or Barry Wilkinson's TFCC Education Site.

• TFCC will also conduct Tutorials in IEEE Chapters/Sections worldwide or conferences for Free to IEEE CS members. Industries can also request for conducting tutorials in their organization. For more details, please see IEEE CS Chapter Tutorials Program web site.

• We have decided to archive key dialogs that appear on our open Task Force on Cluster Computing listserver (TFCC-L) by placing them in the Dialogs Section of the TFCC Newsletter. The first discussion deals with the definition of a Cluster.

Conference Announcements

• IPPS/SPDP'99
  NOTE: Change of Hotel - now CONDADO PLAZA Hotel & Casino. See URL below.
  13th International Parallel Processing Symposium and 10th Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing
  April 12-16, 1999, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
  Sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Parallel Processing, in cooperation with ACM SIGARCH, IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Computer Architecture, and IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Distributed Processing.
  Contact David A. Bader, dbader@eece.unm.edu
  URL: http://www.ippsxx.org

• PDPTA'99
  The 1999 International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications
  June 28 - July 1, 1999
  Monte Carlo Resort, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
  URL: http://www.jhpc.org/pdpta

• PCS'99 2nd International Conference on Parallel Computing Systems
  August 16-20, 1999
  Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico
  URL: http://www.cicese.mx/~pcs99/

• Seventh ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Principles and Practice of Parallel Programming (PPoPP'99)
  Atlanta, Georgia, May 4-6, 1999.
  (Part of Federated Computing Research Conference FCRC'99)
  URL: http://www-csag.ucsd.edu/ppopp/

Call for Papers - Conferences

• Eleventh IASTED International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing and Systems (PDCS'99)
  Cambridge, MA, USA, November 3-6, 1999
  

  Sponsor: The International Association of Science and Technology for Development (IASTED)
  

  IMPORTANT DATES
  Manuscripts due: May 15, 1999
  Author notification: July 15, 1999
  Camera-ready manuscripts and pre-registration: September 1, 1999

  Web site: http://www.iasted.com/conferences/1999/boston/pdcs.htm

• PCS'99 2nd International Conference on Parallel Computing Systems
  August 16-20, 1999
  Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico
  URL: http://www.cicese.mx/~pcs99/
  Important Dates
  Manuscript must be received by April 20, 1999
  Notification of review decisions will be mailed by May 20, 1999
  Camera-ready papers are due June 31, 1999.

• Applications and Enabling Technologies for Cluster Computing
  Call for papers in Special Session at 6th International Conference on High Performance Computing (HiPC'99)
  December 17-20, 1999, Calcutta, India
  Cosponsored by: IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Parallel Processing ACM SIGARCH, Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta
  Manuscript must be received by April 19, 1999.
  URL: http://www.hipc.org/hipc99/clustercfp.txt

Call for Papers - Journals

• SPECIAL ISSUE on Advances in Parallel and Distributed Simulation in Parallel and Distributed Computing Practices (PDCP), a journal published by Nova Science Books. Edited by Carl Tropper.

  IMPORTANT DATES:
  Paper due December 15th, 1999
  Notification of acceptance May 15, 1999
  Final version for the paper due September 1st, 2000
  URL: http://orca.st.usm.edu/pdcp/cfp.html

• Special issue on Unconventional Parallel Architectures in Parallel and Distributed Computing Practices (PDCP)
  Editors: Yakov I. Fet and Peter Kacsuk
  

  IMPORTANT DATES
  Paper due September 1, 1999
  Notification November 30, 1999
  Camera-ready February 1 2000
  URL: http://orca.st.usm.edu/pdcp/cfp/hardware.html

• Special Issue on Cluster Computing over ATM-based Networked Computers in Journal of Supercomputing
  Editors: Rajkumar Buyya, Mahbub Hassan and Sundararajan Vedantham

  IMPORTANT DATES
  Submission Deadline: September 15, 1999
  Notification of Acceptance: November 15, 1999
  Camera Ready Due: December 15, 1999
  Publication of the Issue: 1st Quarter, 2000
  URL: http://www.dgs.monash.edu.au/~rajkumar/atmclusters.html

Journal Announcements

• New journal Cluster Computing, Baltzer Science Publishers, Amsterdam The Netherlands, Editor in Chief: Salim Hariri.

  URL:http://www.baltzer.nl/cluster/cluster.html

Special Issues on Cluster Computing in Journals

• Special Issue on Parallel Computing on Networks of Computers, Informatica: An International Journal of Computing and Informatics Vol 23, No. 1, 1999.

  Guest Editors: Rajkumar Buyya and Marcin Paprzycki.

• Special Issue on High Performance Computing on Clusters, Parallel and Distributed Computing Practices (PDCP) Journal, June 1999 (Vol 2, No. 2), Nova Science Publishers, USA.

  Guest Editors: Rajkumar Buyya and Clemens Szyperski.

• Special Issues in Cluster Computing -- Call For Papers

  URL: http://www.baltzer.nl/cluster/special.html

Workshops

• Cluster Computing Technologies, Environments, and Applications (CC-TEA) as part of
  1999 International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications (PDPTA'99)
  June 28 - July 1, 1999
  Monte Carlo Resort, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
  URL: http://www.dgs.monash.edu.au/~rajkumar/cctea.html

• Scheduling and Load Balancing for Clusters as part of
  1999 International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications (PDPTA'99)
  June 28 - July 1, 1999
  Monte Carlo Resort, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
  URL: http://www.eee.hku.hk/~ykwok/pdpta99-clustersch.html

• PC-NOW'99 Workshop (part of the IPPS/SPDP'99 Symposium)
  San Juan, Puerto Rico, April 16th 1999
  URL: http://www.disi.unige.it/person/ChiolaG/pc-now99/program.html

• Workshop on Cluster-Based Computing -- Call For Submissions
  To be held in conjunction with the Thirteenth ACM International Conference on Supercomputing, June 20-25, 1999 in Rhodes, Greece
  URL: http://www.csrd.uiuc.edu/ics99/workshops.html
  Deadlines:
  Abstract Submission: April 26, 1999 DEADLINE EXTENDED
  Acceptance Notification: May 7, 1999
  5-Page Final Papers: May 24, 1999
  

Tutorials

• Cluster Computing: HPC on Networks of Computers, The 26th International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA '99), Atlanta, Georgia, USA, May 1-4, 1999.

• Java and High Performance Computing, The 19th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS '99), Austin, Texas, USA, May 31-June 5, 1999.

Book Announcements

• High Performance Cluster Computing

  In the recent years, high speed network and improved microprocessor performance are making network of workstations an appealing vehicle for parallel computing. Cluster/network of workstations built using commodity hardware or software is playing a major role in redefining the concept of Supercomputing.

  There are many independent efforts in progress in the industry and research labs for developing supercomputers based on the cluster concept. Currently, there are no books available which can act as a reference for researchers (in the industry and academy) and students at the post graduate level.

  To fill this gap a book on "Cluster Computing" has been written. The book appears in two volumes:

  Vol. 1 -- High Performance Cluster Computing: Architectures and  Systems,  Prentice Hall PTR, NJ, USA, March 1999

  • Preface
  • Table of Contents

  
  Vol. 2 -- High Performance Cluster Computing: Programming and  Applications, Prentice Hall PTR, NJ, USA, March 1999.

  • Preface
  • Table of Contents

  For more information please feel free to contact the book Editor: Rajkumar Buyya

• Annual Review of Scalable Computing, Volume 1, 1999
  Published jointly by World Scientific Publishing Co. and Singapore University Press.

  Editorial Board:
  Chung-Kwong Yuen, National University of Singapore: Editor in Chief
  Kai Hwang, University of Southern California: Co Editor in Chief
  Amnon Barak, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  Willy Zwaenepoel, Rice University
  Jack Dennis, MIT

  Proposals to provide articles for forthcoming issues of Annual Review of Scalable Computing should be sent to
  C K Yuen
  School of Computing
  National University of Singapore
  Kent Ridge, Singapore 119260
  email - yuenck@comp.nus.edu.sg

  For the Year 2000 volume, draft versions should be sent by August 1999; final electronic versions (in prescribed LaTex format) by November 1999.

  Preface of 1999 Edition

  The purpose of the Annual Review of Scalable Computing is to provide a forum for researchers in the area to publish extended-length articles on significant new developments. The articles may cover comprehensive results from a major project, review recent work in a sub-domain, or exposit new ideas in a detailed, tutorial fashion, at a length which most journals and conference proceedings could not accommodate.

  I am pleased to say that the five articles included in this inaugural volume give an excellent illustration of the different types of material that require such extensive treatment, and should serve well to encourage future authors with similar ideas to consider publishing in the Annual Review.

  It takes considerable individual efforts and editorial coordination to bring this kind of multi-author volumes into being in a speedy fashion. I give my thanks to all the authors for their timely contributions, and to the joint publishers for their enthusiastic support. I look forward to again working with them and the Editorial Board on the continuation of this Series.

  Chung-Kwong Yuen January 1999

  Table of Contents

  • C. K. Yuen, "Active objects: A software structure for cluster-based systems," page 1.
  • Y. M. Teo and S. C. Tay, "Scalable optimistic parallel simulation," page 35.
  • S. Benkner. "High Performance Fortran for advanced applications", page 75.
  • O La'adan and A Barak, "Inter process communication optimization in a scalable computing cluster," page 121.
  • Z. Xu and K. Hwang, "Designing superservers with clusters and commodity components," page 181.

New Web Sites on Cluster Computing

• Wolfgang Gentzsch of GENIAS Software in Germany maintains an on-line newsletter for Distributed and Parallel Computing (DPC) at www.geniasoft.com/dpcnews/. He has a long list of DPC conferences, books, web pages, projects, benchmarks, and employment opportunities.