Instructor: Prof. Dimitris Nikolopoulos, 614 McBryde Hall, dsn@cs.vt.edu, Office Hours: M-W, 1:00-2:30, or by appointment.

Graduate Teaching Assistant: Ganesh Narayanaswamy, cnganesh@vt.edu, Office Hours: T 11:00am-1:00pm (133A McBryde Hall), TR 11:00am-12:00noon (133B McBryde Hall).

Prerequisite: CS 3204 (Operating Systems) with a C or better.

Text: Parallel Programming in C with MPI and OpenMP, Quinn, McGraw Hill, 2004.

Web page: http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs4234.

Grading: homework (5 at 6% each = 30%), project, phase 1 (15%), project, phase 2 (20%), midterm in class (15%), final in class (20%). Assignments are due at the beginning of class on the due date. Unexcused late assignments are penalized 25% per weekday.

Justification and learning objectives:

Parallel computation is becoming pervasive in all levels of computing---from massively parallel supercomputers used in large scale computational science, to multiprocessor servers supporting transaction processing and the World Wide Web, to media desktops and game machines with multicore processors, to networks of sensors. The major issues raised in each of the core areas of computer science (e.g., algorithms, systems, languages, architecture, etc.) become even more interesting when considered in the context of parallel computing. Hence, this course challenges students to apply in a new context the concepts and tools they have studied in earlier computer science courses. This is a hands-on course which will introduce students to a topic of fundamental importance to a wide variety of application areas.

Having successfully completed this course, the student will be able to:

• explain the basic concepts of parallel computation and become familar with state-of-the-art parallel architectures.
• compare alternative approaches to designing and implementing parallel algorithms and architectures.
• solve large scale problems and implement system software to support parallel computing on the most common parallel computing platforms.
• measure and evaluate the performance of parallel applications.

Schedule:

We will cover the following chapters from the textbook, in order, spending 1-2 weeks on each: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 17. The midterm is scheduled tentatively for October 9. The final is scheduled for December 11, 3.25-5.25 p.m.