RE [erlang-questions] Idle question

[Olivier BOUDEVILLE]

Hi,

We are currently making use of Erlang for some kind of distributed 
discrete time-stepped simulations, and we were actually considering the 
port of an Erlang VM on a Bluegene/P for 2010. 

We are less in need for floating-point number-crunching abilities than for 
a massive parallel execution that could take advantage of  the vast amount 
of total RAM that the Bluegene provides: for the large-scale simulations 
we aim, with the Bluegene we might get an edge over classical clusters (if 
still able to rely on a low-latency network).

I believe that Erlang is very relevant to develop (somewhat complex) 
distributed algorithms, involving message reordering and massive 
concurrency. This is true for time-stepped algorithms, and I guess still 
truer for event-driven conservative or optimistic simulations, where 
deadlock detection/avoidance and distributed rollback mechanisms would be 
surely easier to develop in Erlang than, say, C or C++. 

So there would be definitively an interest in such a port, and the outlook 
of any joint effort/shared needs could help me promote the porting effort 
internally.

On the technical side, the port of the Erlang VM to a Bluegene node could 
be less complex than expected at first glance: unless I am mistaken, the 
PowerPC architecture is supported by Erlang, a minimal GNU/Linux 
environment should be available on each node, and the lack of multithread 
support should not be a problem (thanks to green threads). The major issue 
would probably be the network, knowing that by default not TCP/IP stack is 
available on the Bluegene, as I understand. Options could be to switch to 
a Bluegene-native carrier, or to make use of MPI for 
internode-communications, or maybe to rely on any experimental TCP/IP 
support that may already exist.

Finally, according to http://www.ece.iastate.edu/~crb002/cnr.html Ruby was 
already ported successfully to the Bluegene; is there anything that Ruby 
can do and that Erlang cannot? 

Best regards,

Olivier Boudeville.
---------------------------
Olivier Boudeville

EDF R&D : 1, avenue du Général de Gaulle, 92140 Clamart, France
Département SINETICS, groupe ASICS (I2A), bureau B-226
Office : +33 1 47 65 59 58 / Mobile : +33 6 16 83 37 22 / Fax : +33 1 47 
65 27 13



ok@REDACTED 
Envoyé par : erlang-questions@REDACTED
23/11/2009 23:02

A
erlang-questions@REDACTED
cc

Objet
[erlang-questions] Idle question






Suppose Erlang were available on BlueFern
(the BlueGene machine at the University of Canterbury,
see http://www.bluefern.canterbury.ac.nz/
).  What would you use it for?  What science or
technology would it advance?


________________________________________________________________
erlang-questions mailing list. See http://www.erlang.org/faq.html
erlang-questions (at) erlang.org





Ce message et toutes les pièces jointes (ci-après le 'Message') sont établis à l'intention exclusive des destinataires et les informations qui y figurent sont strictement confidentielles. Toute utilisation de ce Message non conforme à sa destination, toute diffusion ou toute publication totale ou partielle, est interdite sauf autorisation expresse.

Si vous n'êtes pas le destinataire de ce Message, il vous est interdit de le copier, de le faire suivre, de le divulguer ou d'en utiliser tout ou partie. Si vous avez reçu ce Message par erreur, merci de le supprimer de votre système, ainsi que toutes ses copies, et de n'en garder aucune trace sur quelque support que ce soit. Nous vous remercions également d'en avertir immédiatement l'expéditeur par retour du message.

Il est impossible de garantir que les communications par messagerie électronique arrivent en temps utile, sont sécurisées ou dénuées de toute erreur ou virus.
____________________________________________________

This message and any attachments (the 'Message') are intended solely for the addressees. The information contained in this Message is confidential. Any use of information contained in this Message not in accord with its purpose, any dissemination or disclosure, either whole or partial, is prohibited except formal approval.

If you are not the addressee, you may not copy, forward, disclose or use any part of it. If you have received this message in error, please delete it and all copies from your system and notify the sender immediately by return message.

E-mail communication cannot be guaranteed to be timely secure, error or virus-free.