Semi-iterative methods on distributed memory multiprocessor architectures

In the parallel ELLPACK (//ELLPACK) project we are developing a library of parallel interative methods for distributed memory multiprocessor systems and software tools for partitioning and allocation of the underlying computations. In this paper we discuss the implementation issues within the //ELLPACK environment and present preliminary performance results of some of the modules on three hypercube based architectures: NCUBE, iPSC/1 and iPSC/2. These results indicate that the iterative methods are capable of delivering close to optimal scaled speed-ups while the combination of concurrent/vector processing can lead to sizable improvements of the overall performance. These experiments have shown that distributed memory systems are capable of solving significantly large problems effectively.