The top500 list uses a slightly different distinction between an MPP and a cluster, as explained inDongarra et al. paper:

[a cluster is a] parallel computer system comprising an integrated collection of independent nodes, each of which is a system in its own right, capable of independent operation and derived from products developed and marketed for other stand-alone purposes

Compared to a cluster, a modern MPP (such as the IBM Blue Gene) is more tightly-integrated: individual nodes cannot run on their own and they are connected by a custom network (like a multidimensional torus). But, similarly to a cluster, an MPP doesn’t have shared memory. I’d be thus extremely careful to use terms SIMD and MIMD in this context as they usually describe shared memory architectures (SMP).

MPP vs Clusters

Leave a Reply