CSIS 434 Parallel & Distributed Computing

Course Description

A theoretical and practical survey of parallel processing, including a discussion of parallel architectures, parallel programming languages, and parallel algorithms. Students will program one or more parallel computers in a higher-level parallel language.


Instructor

Brian R. Snider
Office hours: Wood-Mar 223 (see schedule)


Texts

required


Resources

Objectives

Students will understand:

Students will gain practical experience designing and implementing parallel solutions, including use of a shared compute resource.

Course Organization

This course will include programming exercises demonstrating parallel and distributed system concepts. Programming assignments will be carried out in one or more prescribed high-level languages. Limited instruction in the use of these languages will be provided. You are assumed to have previous experience with one or more high-level languages and will be expected to acquire the language skills necessary for this course with a minimum level of instruction.

The course will include regular homework and/or programming assignments. There will be no credit given for late assignments (without an excused absence)—turn in as much as you can. Unless otherwise specified, no handwritten work will be accepted.

Reading should be completed before the lecture covering the material per the provided schedule. Not all reading material will be covered in the lectures, but you will be responsible for the material on homework and exams. Quizzes over the assigned reading may be given at any time.


Collaboration and Academic Integrity

See the GFU CS/IS/Cyber policies for collaboration and discussion of collaboration and academic integrity. See also the university's policy on the use of generative AI and related tools in an academic setting. Most students would be surprised at how easy it is to detect collaboration or other academic integrity violations such as plagiarism in programming—please do not test us! Remember: you always have willing and legal collaborators in the faculty. We encourage you to ask questions in class, ask for help in the CS lab, use the class mailing list, and visit office hours for assistance.

Unless otherwise specified (e.g., for a group assignment or project), you are expected to do your own work. This also applies to the use of online resources (e.g., solution guides), help forums (e.g., StackOverflow), and generative models (e.g., ChatGPT). Put simply: if you are representing someone (or something) else's work as your own, you are being dishonest. Any suspected incidents of academic integrity violations will be investigated and reported to the Academic Affairs Office as they arise.

Almost all of life is filled with collaboration (i.e., people working together). Yet in our academic system, we artificially limit collaboration. These limits are designed to force you to learn fundamental principles and build specific skills. It is very artificial, and you'll find that collaboration is a valuable skill in the working world. While some of you may be tempted to collaborate too much, others will collaborate too little. When appropriate, it's a good idea to make use of others—the purpose here is to learn. Be sure to make the most of this opportunity but do it earnestly and with integrity.


University Resources

Accessibility and Disability

If you have specific physical, psychiatric, or learning disabilities and require accommodations, please contact Disability & Accessibility Services (DAS) as early as possible so that your learning needs can be appropriately met. For more information, go to georgefox.edu/das or contact das@georgefox.edu.

My desire as a professor is for this course to be welcoming to, accessible to, and usable by everyone, including students who are English-language learners, have a variety of learning styles, have disabilities, or are new to online learning systems. Be sure to let me know immediately if you encounter a required element or resource in the course that is not accessible to you. Also, let me know of changes I can make to the course so that it is more welcoming to, accessible to, or usable by students who take this course in the future.

Academic Resource Center

The Academic Resource Center (ARC) on the Newberg campus provides all undergraduate students with free writing consultation, academic coaching, and learning strategy review (e.g., techniques to improve reading, note-taking, study, time management). The ARC offers in-person appointments; if necessary, Zoom appointments can be arranged by request. The ARC, located on the first floor of the Murdock Library, is open during the academic year from 1:00–9:00 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and 12:00–4:00 p.m. on Friday. To schedule an appointment, click on the TracCloud icon on the Canvas dashboard, go to traccloud.georgefox.edu, call 503-554-2327, email the_arc@georgefox.edu, or stop by the ARC. Visit arc.georgefox.edu for information about ARC Consultants' areas of study, instructions for scheduling an appointment, learning tips, and a list of other tutoring options on campus.

Student Support Network

George Fox University uses a robust referral and support system, Fox360, to learn about students who are experiencing various student success concerns. Students who are referred by a professor, other employee, or fellow student will be contacted by a member of our Student Support Network to explore the student's situation, develop a plan, and connect with relevant campus resources. GFU community members who have a concern about a student's well-being can submit an alert by going to fox360.georgefox.edu. Our goal is to provide 360° care for students as they navigate their college experience. For more information see ssn.georgefox.edu or contact Rick Muthiah, Director of Learning Support Services.


Health and Safety Considerations

Please review the entirety of the university's official COVID-19 web page for the most up-to-date community guidance.

Grading

Grading Scale

The final course grade will be based on:

Graded course activities will be posted to Canvas. Take care to read the specifications carefully and proceed as directed. Failure to pay attention to detail will often result in few to zero points being awarded on a given activity.

Grades will be updated as often as possible; you are encouraged to use the "What-If" functionality to calculate your total grade by entering hypothetical scores for various items.

Note that some graded activities in this course will be submitted via GitLab.

Tentative Schedule

Week 1 · Tue

Course Overview; Introduction to Parallelism

Reading: pp. 1–9, 12–13

Week 1 · Thu

Goals of Parallelism

Reading: pp. 25–28

Week 2 · Tue

Parallel Architectures and Communication & Memory Models

Reading: pp. 30–59

Week 2 · Thu

Parallel Architectures; Flynn's Taxonomy

Week 3 · Tue

Parallel Performance; Performance Loss; Amdahl's Law

Reading: pp. 61–76

Week 3 · Thu

Profiling Lab; C++ Threads

Reading: pp. 307–311

Week 4 · Tue

Thread Programming Lab

Week 4 · Thu

Performance Metrics; Data & Task Parallelism

Reading: pp. 77–85, 88–89

Week 5 · Tue

Global & Local Views; Message Passing Interface

Reading: pp. 202–218, 222–229, 233–234

Week 5 · Thu

MPI Programming Lab

Week 6 · Tue

Supercomputers; Resource Sharing & Job Scheduling; Slurm

Reading: Slurm overview

Week 6 · Thu

MPI Programming for Parallel Monte Carlo Estimation

Week 7 · Tue

Midterm exam review

Week 7 · Thu, 10/9

Midterm exam

Week 8 · Tue

Cellular Automata: Grids, Cells, & Visualization

Week 8 · Thu

Cellular Automata: Neighborhoods; Deterministic & Probabilistic Rules

Week 9 · Tue

Cellular Automata: Parallel Computation

Week 9 · Thu

Thread Programming for Cellular Automata

Week 10 · Tue

MPI Programming for Cellular Automata

Week 10 · Thu

MPI Programming Lab

Week 11 · Tue

Checkpointing

Week 11 · Thu

Distributed & Grid Computing; Work Distribution & Load Balancing

Reading: pp. 290–291

Week 12 · Tue

CUDA: Architecture & Programming Overview

Reading: CUDA C/C++ basics

Week 12 · Thu

CUDA: Grid/Block/Thread Topology; Kernels & Kernel Launch

Week 13 · Tue

CUDA Programming for Cellular Automata

Week 13 · Thu

CUDA Programming Lab

Week 14 · Tue

CUDA Programming for Cellular Automata

Week 14 · Thu, 11/27

Thanksgiving break—no classes

Week 15 · Tue

CUDA Programming Lab

Week 15 · Thu

Final exam review

Week 16 · TBD

Final exam
  1. GFU
  2. CS
  3. BRS
  4. CSIS 434

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