Book dossier

Petascale Computing

by David A. Bader

Although the highly anticipated petascale computers of the near future will perform at an order of magnitude faster than today's quickest supercomputer, the scaling up of algorithms and applications for this class of computers remains a tough challenge. From scalable algorithm design for massive concurrency toperformance analyses and scientific visualization, Petascale Computing: Algorithms and Applications captures the state of the art in high-performance computing algorithms and applications. Featuring contributions from the world's leading experts in computational science, this edited collection explores the use of petascale computers for solving the most difficult scientific and engineering problems of the current century. Covering a wide range of important topics, the book illustrates how petascale computing can be applied to space and Earth science missions, biological systems, weather prediction, climate science, disasters, black holes, and gamma ray bursts. It details the simulation of multiphysics, cosmological evolution, molecular dynamics, and biomolecules. The book also discusses computational aspects that include the Uintah framework, Enzo code, multithreaded algorithms, petaflops, performance analysis tools, multilevel finite element solvers, finite element code development, Charm++, and the Cactus framework. Supplying petascale tools, programming methodologies, and an eight-page color insert, this volume addresses the challenging problems of developing application codes that can take advantage of the architectural features of the new petascale systems in advance of their first deployment.