Experiences with a wide area network metacomputing management tool using IBMSP-2 parallel system

The need to deal with highly complex scientific problems has led some researchers to use geographically distributed computing resources as a single powerful parallel machine. The word metacomputing has been coined to describe this new approach. This paper outlines some experiences in metacomputing carried out on a wide area network. A brief overview is given of the main issues concerning metacomputing, and some experiments in this field are reported. WAMM, the metacomputer visual interface we have developed, is described. Astrophysics is a particularly fruitful field for numerical-intensive computer simulation, because the systems under study, stars and galaxies, are not amenable to controlled laboratory experiments. An astrophysical application of the gravitational n-body problem, developed in conjunction with the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, was used to test WAMM's utility in metacomputer management, and some performance figures related to the case study are given. Work related to WAMM and conclusions are also presented.