COMP4300/6430: Parallel Systems

Semester 1, 2013

This is an honours/masters level course that covers a variety of topics related to parallel computer systems. You will learn about parallel hardware and associated programming models, and how to divide up computation so that it can be executed in parallel. We will explore the current state of high end computing both for computationally intensive and data intensive computing. The course will make use of the supercomputer located on campus at the National Computational Infrastructure facility.

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Important messages will be posted here!

The Exam: The exam is marked out of 80 and represents 40% of your course mark. It comprises 5 main questions, each with several parts. The themes for these questions and their total worth are as follows:

• 15 marks - General
• 15 marks - Message Passing
• 15 marks - Shared Memory Platforms
• 20 marks - Practical Parallelisation
• 15 marks - Task Based Programming

Component questions range in value from 2 marks to 8 marks with an average value of just over 4. As the exam is 180 minutes long, each mark corresponds to 2.25 minutes writing time. You will need to monitor you time usage carefully. To this end use the reading time to study the paper, and to determine the order in which you answer the questions. Remember it is usually better to attempt all questions and provide imperfect answers rather than only a few questions with perfect answers.

Good luck - Alistair and Josh