Parallel and High Performance Computing

(Parallel Computing: Grundlagen und Anwendungen)

Vorlesung mit Übung im Wintersemester 2017/2018
Prof. Dr. D. Kranzlmüller, Dr. K. Fürlinger, T. Fuchs M.Sc.

This course will be held in English!

Welcome to the course webpage for Parallel and High Performance Computing for winter-term 2017/18 at LMU Munich. Here you will be able to find details on the lecture and the accompanying practical lab exercises.

News

Content

Parallel computing is concerned with using multiple compute units to solve a problem faster or with higher accuracy. Historically, the main application area for parallel machines is found in engineering and scientific computing, where high performance computing (HPC) systems today employ tens- or even hundreds of thousand compute cores.

The application area for parallel computing has, however, expanded recently to essentially include all areas of information technology. Virtually all servers, desktop, and notebook systems, and even smartphones and tables are today equipped with CPUs that contain multiple compute cores. In each case, the potential for these systems can only be fully realized by explicit parallel programming. As such understanding the benefits, challenges, and limits of parallel computing is increasingly becoming a "must have" qualification for IT professionals.

This course addresses the increasing importance of parallel and high performance computing and is covering three interwoven areas: Parallel hardware architectures, parallel algorithm design, and parallel programming. The successful student will be able to identify potentials for parallel computing in various application areas, judge the suitability of contemporary hardware architectures for a parallel computing problem and understand efficient implementation strategies using modern parallel programming approaches.

The lecture is partially based on material that has been developed at UC Berkeley and which has been funded by the US National Science Foundation. The course slides will be made available for download by the date of the lecture and will be in English.

Audience

The course is intended for both bachelor and master students of computer science and related fields. More formally, in German: Die Vorlesung richtet sich an Studenten der Informatik bzw. Medieninformatik (Diplom) nach dem Vordiplom sowie an Studenten der Informatik, Bioinformatik bzw. Medieninformatik (Bachelor, Master) im Rahmen der vertiefenden Themen der Informatik. Für Vorlesung und Übung werden 6 ECTS-Punkte vergeben.

Important Dates

Please note that the dates and locations for lecture and lab exercises listed below are provisional and may change prior to the start of the course!