[vox] BayPIGgies meeting Thursday, June 24, 2010: Exploiting Parallelism - A Concise and Practical Introduction

[jim]

BayPIGgies meeting Thursday, June 24, 2010: Exploiting Parallelism - A
Concise and Practical Introduction


Tonight's talk is 
* Exploiting Parallelism - A Concise and Practical 
Introduction, by Minesh B. Amin, 
the first part of a two-part presentation 


Meetings usually start with a Newbie Nugget, a short discussion of 
an essential Python feature, especially for those new to Python. 
Tonight's Newbie Nugget: A Documentation Tip 


LOCATION 
Symantec Corporation
Symantec Vcafe
350 Ellis Street
Mountain View, CA 94043
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&fb=1&split=1&gl=us&ei=w6i_Sfr6MZmQsQOzlv0v&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=116202735295394761637.00046550c09ff3d96bff1&ll=37.397693,-122.053707&spn=0.002902,0.004828&z=18

BayPIGgies meeting information is available at 
http://www.baypiggies.net/ 


------------------------ Agenda ------------------------


..... 7:30 PM ...........................
General hubbub, inventory end-of-meeting announcements, any 
first-minute announcements. 


..... 7:35 PM to 7:45 PM ................
Newbie Nugget: A Documentation Tip 


..... 7:45 PM to 8:40 PM (or so) ................

June 24, 2010 -- First of a two-part presentation: 
Exploiting Parallelism - A Concise and Practical Introduction
by Minesh B. Amin

In his book In Search of Clusters, Gregory Pfister said it best. 
To paraphrase, there are three ways to do anything faster: work 
harder, work smarter, or get help. In computer-speak, this 
roughly translates to: increase processor speed, improve 
algorithms, or exploit parallelism.

With processor speeds no longer doubling every eighteen months, 
and little or no room left for improvements in serial 
algorithms, exploiting parallelism is the one frontier with 
the potential for delivering huge improvements in performance.

This talk introduces terminology and concepts to develop an 
understanding of how to exploit parallelism; present mental 
models for decomposing problems to exploit parallelism; and 
apply these concepts to survey available solutions, including 
Open MPI, Open MP, MapReduce/Hadoop, Intel threading blocks, 
Python multiprocessing module, and a handful of commercial 
solutions.

Minesh B. Amin is the founder and CEO of MBA Sciences, which 
recently introduced the SPM.Python product that enables users 
to easily create parallel applications using an integrated 
Python API and framework. Minesh received his PhD in Computer 
Science from the University of Minnesota and moved to the 
Silicon Valley, developing software solutions at ViewLogic 
and Synopsys prior to starting MBA Sciences in 2006. He is a 
big fan of the Python language and in his spare time enjoys 
Pink Floyd, House, hiking and firing up a barbecue grill, 
though not necessarily in that order. :-)

Links: 
http://mbasciences.com/ 


..... 8:50 PM to 9:30 PM  ................
Mapping and Random Access

Mapping is a rapid-fire audience announcement of issues, hiring, 
events, and other topics. 

Random Access follows people immediately to allow follow up on the 
announcements and other interests.