Building a World-Wide Virtual Machine Based on Web and HPCC Technologies

In this paper we report on a parallel/distributed virtual machine prototype called World-Wide Virtual Machine (WWVM) that is designed to attack grand challenge problems beyond the capabilities of a single supercomputer. The prototype is based on emerging Web and existing HPCC technologies and utilizes the pool of Web servers on the internet as a flexible, convenient, and inexpensive metacomputing resource. World-Wide web supplies a standard open interface to the world regardless of the machine type. Through this interface Web servers can be used either as computation nodes or coordinators managing other connected nodes of the virtual machine. We have constructed a Web-based parallel/distributed programming environment for solving metaproblems consisting of MPI and PVM message-passing programs and High Performance Fortran programs.