Dear Chandra Users,
If you find yourself bumping up against the limits of the single-CPU
approach to modeling and fitting, perhaps you would be interested
in learning about how our team has used PVM to distribute a number
of modeling calculations in ISIS.
The work was described in an oral presentation at ADASS XV, the
proceedings paper for which is available at
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0510688
Regards, Mike Noble
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Using the Parallel Virtual Machine for Everyday Analysis
M.S. Noble, J.C. Houck, J.E. Davis, A. Young, M. Nowak
A review of the literature reveals that while parallel computing is
sometimes employed by astronomers for custom, large-scale calculations,
no package fosters the routine application of parallel methods to
standard problems in astronomical data analysis. This paper describes
our attempt to close that gap by wrapping the Parallel Virtual Machine
(PVM) as a scriptable S-Lang module. Using PVM within ISIS, the
Interactive Spectral Interpretation System, we've distributed a number
of representive calculations over a network of 25+ CPUs to achieve
dramatic reductions in execution times. We discuss how the approach
applies to a wide class of modeling problems, outline our efforts to
make it more transparent for common use, and note its growing importance
in the context of the large, multi-wavelength datasets used in modern
analysis.
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