Parallel Engineering and Scientific Subroutine Library for AIX Version 2 Release 3: Guide and Reference

In Brief--What's Provided in Parallel ESSL

|Parallel ESSL has the following characteristics:

• Parallel ESSL provides these run-time libraries:
  • The Parallel ESSL SMP Libraries are provided for use with the |MPI threads library. You may run single or multithreaded applications on all types of nodes. However, you cannot simultaneously call Parallel ESSL from multiple threads. Use these Parallel ESSL libraries if you are using both |MPI and LAPI. The SMP library is for use on the |POWER and PowerPC (for example, POWER3-II SMP Thin, Wide, or High Nodes) SMP processors.

    |The Parallel ESSL SMP Libraries support both |32-bit-environment and 64-bit-environment |applications.

  • The Parallel ESSL Serial Libraries are provided for use with the MPI signal handling library on all types of nodes. |These libraries are tuned for the POWER, POWER3, POWER3-II, |POWER4, and PowerPC processors.
• Parallel processing subroutines (distributed memory versions) provided in key math areas:
  • Subset of Level 2 and Level 3 Parallel BLAS (PBLAS)
  • Linear Algebraic Equations
    • Subset of ScaLAPACK (dense and banded)
    • Sparse subroutines and their utilities
  • Subset of ScaLAPACK Eigensystem Analysis and Singular Value Analysis
  • Fourier transforms
  • Uniform random number generation

  For a list of subroutines, refer to Index.

• Supports the IBM RS/6000 SP and clusters of |IBM pSeries and RS/6000 workstations
• Includes the Basic Linear Algebra Communication Subprograms (BLACS) which provides ease of use for message passing.
• Supports the SPMD programming model:
  • Uses the ESSL subroutines for computations on each processor node
  • Uses the MPI |signal-handling or threads library for communication:
    • US--SP Switch, SP Switch2
    • |IP--Ethernet, Token Ring, Fiber Distributed Data Interface |(FDDI), SP Switch, SP Switch2
• Callable from application programs written in Fortran, C, and C++.