The Monash Parallel Parametric Modelling Engine (PPME) is a cluster of computers designed specifically for large parametric modelling computations. Because it supports the concurrent execution of one program on multiple machines, it can achieve performance many times faster than would be possible on a single computer.

The current system specifications are:

• 2 x 330 MHz Pentium II processors
• 2 x 350 MHz Pentium II processors
• 8 x 500 MHz Pentium III processors
• 26 x 700 MHz Pentium III processors
• 26 x 800 MHz Pentium III processors
• 52 x 3 GHz Pentium 4 processors
• 60 Gbytes RAM
• ~2.5 Tbytes disk space

The cluster is comprised of 72 machines at the Clayton campus made up of 2 servers and 70 nodes (client machines). 52 of these (50 nodes and 2 servers) are Intel 3GHz P4 with 1Gb RAM while the remainder are dual-processor pentiums (700 or 800MHz PIII). Most machines are running Linux although there are a couple running Windows. A gigabit network connects all machines together with network access via the high speed GrangeNet.

Experiments are controlled using the Axceleon EnFuzion program. This software suite allows a user to specify an experiment using a simple GUI based tool, and then to perform the work on the nodes of the cluster.

This machine has been funded by the School of Computer Science and Software Engineering, the School of Business Systems and the Monash University Research Fund.