Intel Go Parallel Weblog

Detecting Scalability Problems With Intel Parallel Universe Portal

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:53:24 -0500

You already know that achieving a linear speedup as the number of cores increases in real life parallelized applications is indeed very difficult. However, sometimes, the multicore scalability of certain algorithms for existing multicore systems could be worse than expected. The overhead and the bugs introduced by concurrency could bring really unexpected scalability problems when the number of cores increases. Intel can help you with a free service in the cloud.

Just Say No To SFAQL Parallelism

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:16:12 -0500

I know, I know, a lot of folks out there are big subscribers to the 'just-get-'er -done' school of software maintenance and development. The idea of sitting somewhere while a design group is doing its work is just plain torture. It feels like a waste of time and money. Somehow there's always a fire that demands that we code now and capture the design later.

QuickThread: A New C++ Multicore Library

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:54:59 -0500

NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) architectures are becoming popular in HPC (High-Performance Computing) scenarios. Therefore, it is very important to work with efficient and optimized memory allocators. QuickThread is a new commercial C++ multicore programming library loaded with many optimizations for NUMA architectures, bringing a new option to create high-performance parallelized code.

Speeding Up Code Without Doing Anything

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:25:25 -0500

Of all the techniques I use to speed up code, the one I like the most comes with just the press of a button, or more precisely at the swap of a compiler Every Intel compiler has this particular option, and I consider to be a great friend. I'm making a point of keeping you in suspense for a little while longer. Let me first tell you a couple of stories that prove the point.

Multicore Scalability is Already Possible With the Intel Atom Family

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:27:49 -0500

Whilst designing and developing applications targeting netbooks and MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices), one of the great questions is whether there is a real possibility of scaling to more cores in the near future. There's no need to think about the future. The Intel Atom family is already offering a dual-core microprocessor with Hyper-Threading, two physical cores and four hardware threads.

Go: A New Concurrent Systems Programming Language from Google

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:46:58 -0500

Google launched Go, a new systems programming language born with concurrency, simplicity and performance in mind. Do you have time to learn another programming language this year?

There's Good News and There's Bad News ...

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:13:00 -0500

Last week we gave the webinar scene a break. Instead, Tracey talked me into going with her to the new Bill Gates Hillman Complex located on Carnegie Mellon campus in Pittsburgh. Holger Hoos from the University of British Columbia was giving a talk called "Taming the Complexity Monster". I figured how could we go wrong!

Visual Studio 2010 Multi-Monitor Support Helps Debugging Parallel Code

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:14:28 -0500

Debugging a parallelized application requires more information on the screen than debugging sequential code. Sometimes, even Full HD monitors aren't enough to display all the necessary windows at the same time. Luckily, Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 offers a very intuitive multi-monitor support.

Sequential Programming: Like Eating Peas with a Straw.

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:29:01 -0500

Before the era of multicore chips, performance gains in CPUs was achieved by a combination of ever increasing speed and architectural enhancements. This resulted in more and more power being consumed by the processor -- a situation that could not continue forever.

Biomolecular device using self-assembled DNA nanostructures?

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:18:04 -0500

As I sit at my computer with it multicores considering the advantages of parallelism, faster computers, better performance, a strange feeling comes over me, 'Haven't I heard this before?'

Coreinfo v2.0: A Simple Utility to Understand the Manycore Complexity in Windows

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:51:52 -0500

Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 (64-bits version) offer new NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory Access) support. Therefore, it is very important for Windows developers to understand the differences found in the complex underlying multicore and manycore hardware. Coreinfo is a very simple yet powerful command-line utility that shows you very useful information about the processors, their organization and the cache topology.

Visualizing Parallelism and Concurrency in Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:39:08 -0500

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 includes many interesting improvements related to its multicore programming features. The parallelism and concurrency profiling tools allow developers to visualize the behavior of a multithreaded application on multicore microprocessors and collect resource contention data.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and .Net Framework 4.0 Beta 2 Is Out

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:50:12 -0500

Microsoft released the Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 that comes with the new .Net Framework 4.0 Beta 2. The previous Beta 1 offered many interesting features that empowered parallel programming using the supported languages. However, the IDE had many important performance problems.

Logical Inferences Per Second (LIPS) vs. Horsepower

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:46:55 -0500

Of course we're a little jealous of those developers who get to develop those fun and nifty IPhone apps! Perhaps we're just a tad bit curious too. But for the moment we are absolutely in the grips of a very different kind of software development.

19 E-mails, How Many Lines of Javascript Per Instruction Does it Take?

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:29:28 -0500

On one hand it's funny. On the other hand, well ... it's funny. It's probably a matter of poetic justice being served up. Something I did or something Tracey did in a past life. But recently we seem unable to escape conversations that end up in questions (which we normally evade) about what we do.