Notre Dame's Laboratory for Scientific Computing has released a new version of its Local Area Multicomputer (LAM) software library.

LAM software implements a Message Passing Interface (MPI) which allows the Central Processing Units (CPU's) of multiple computers to work in concert, thus combining and greatly increasing their power. This process is called parallel computing. The LAM software can run on many different types of computer, from desktop personal computers (PCs) to supercomputers.

"Packages like LAM have made parallel computing much more available to users of PCs because the computers themselves are economical and much of the software, including the Linux operating system, is free," said Jeff Squyres, a Notre Dame graduate student in computer science and engineering and one of the LAM package developers.

"The result is that clusters of PCs have replaced supercomputers for some applications, and often with tremendous cost savings," he added.

According to Squyres, the increasing popularity of these clusters, or "poor man's supercomputers," has spawned a nickname, "Beowulf." He said that LAM is the most widely used version of MPI for Beowulf clusters around the world.

More information on LAM may be obtained from the LAM Web site at http://www.mpi.nd.edu/lam/. The complete LAM software package may be downloaded from the Web site free of charge.

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