From: gnreddy@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (G.Narotham Reddy)
Subject: Repost: PARAM: India's Supercomputer
Organization: AT&T
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 20:12:48 GMT


* I received several requests for this article, hence re-posting.
No flames please.

Narotham

--------

Does India need supercomputers? Yes, says the government of India. Then
why is it that we have only one supercomputer (Cray X-MP) installed
for the entire country ( at Meteorological Department in New Delhi)?
We have been hearing for quite sometime now that a second Cray is going
to be installed at IISc.  What is the hitch in purchasing the
supercomputer?  Apparently the US Government does not deem India to be
a suitable customer for supercomputers.  It appearas to be more of a 
political hitch than a computer bottleneck.  So what do we do? Simple
actually: just wait for Uncle Sam to change its mind.
	In the meanwhile, the Government of India started its own effort
to build a super computer. A little over four years ago the Center for 
Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) was launched by the government
of India as India's national initiative in advanced computing.  C-DAC
was given a time bound mission to design, develop and bring into commercial
production high performance parallel computers with a peak computing
power exceeding 1 gigaFLOP and demonstrate applications of national
importance.  The financial outlay for this project was Rs 30 Crore, to
be implemented by July 1991.
	surprisingly, unlike many other Government initiatives, C-DAC
delivered what was expected of it without any time delay or cost
overruns.  
	It developed the PARAM parallel computer with the PARAS programming
environment.  Added to that, C-DAC demonstrated the application 
feasibility of the PARAM in a range of science and engineering
problems,  These include image processing, remote sensing,
computational fluid dynamics, finite element methods, seismic data
processing and so on.  The applications were developed jointly by
C-DAC and various user agencies like Space Application Center, VSSC,
R&D, NCST and ONGC.  It has been an achievement worth lauding,
especially when one considers the fact that C-DAC got into the act
only in 1988 which was at least a couple of years behind the efforts
of others across the world. 
	Today, C-DAC can be proud of the fact the the technology
adopted for the PRARAM is in tune with the best in the world.  The
Indian initiative in massively parallel processing (MPP) is on the
right track and C-DAC efforts should make us proud of the Indian
technological capabilities.
	Having completed the first mission successfully, C-DAC is onto
building a machine which is architecturally scannable to 100 GFLOP
peak by the end of 1993.  Engineering wise, C-DAC expects to realise
a machine of 25 GFLOP and the actual machines that will be built will
depend on the resources available.  It is interesting to note that
these GFLOP targets set by C-DAC are more driven by international
developments. These should be achieved if C-DAC is to remain as a
serious contender in the global MPP initiatives.  This becomes very
obvious when one gazes at the targets set for the later part of the
decade. C-DAC executive director Dr. Vijay P Bhatkar says, "The
teraFLOPS race has begun.  The initial target set for the 1,000 GFLOP
machine was the turn of the century but now they are trying to advance
it to '97.  That is the target that C-DAC has put for the second
mission".
	Competition for the PARAM stems from the MPP efforts in the US
and Europe.  In Europe, MPP is mainly restricted to UK, France and
Germany.  The two efforts in the UK are that of Meiko and Parsys,
According to Bhatkar, the Meiko machine is amongst the most popular
parallel computer machines in the world.  In France it is Telmat and
in Germany the Parsitech.  Recently, Meiko, Parsys and Telmat came
together to launch a combined initiative to counter the US offensive
which is spearheaded by Intel's Paragaon.  Dr.Bhatkar says, "Today all
the commercially available parallel computers look alike.
Architecturally they are the same and they all are distributed memory
scannable machines.  This corroborates the original architecture
chosen by C-DAC which was questioned in the begining".
	However, it is not a hunky-dory situation at C-DAC.  There
are problems which are frustrating its think-tank.  The major concerns
are commercial acceptability of PRARAM, continued funding from the
Government, liberalization of the economy, lack of strategic alliances
for international marketing and its own limitations as far as
marketing is concerned.  While these concerns may appear to be more
than a handful, the most crucial factor for the continued success of
C-DAC is Government support.  No parallel computer initiative anywhere
in the world has succeeded without government support and India will
be no exception.  It is not enought to launch a massive parallel
processing initiative.  It is equally important that it is given whole
hearted support.  This is of course provided by the technology
providing agency, which is C-DAC in this case.  It keeps abreast of
the best in the rest of the world.  
	According to Bhatkar, the PARAM product compares favourably
with other MPP efforts.  He says, "In the Supercomputing Europe '92
show, there were major announcements made by the European and US
companies.  Amongst them was a major initiative called Concerto 
announced by three European companies.  This machine is very similar 
to the PARAM 8600 except for the fact that the PARAM has got a better
bisectional comminication band width which is a very important feature
of parallel computing.  C-DAC's PARAM development is at par with the
best European machine currently available".
	On analyzing the concerns facing C-DAC, it is apparent that
the future of C-DAC depends on government support. for instance,
commercial acceptability, almost all potential users of the MPP
computers are in the government and its undertakings, PSUs
educational and R&D institutions.  The other advantage of initial
government support is that if PARAMs get installed in the educational
institutions then further development in the Indian MPP program will
become routine and automatic.  So if the government takes a stance to
promote the PARAM solution then half of C-DAC's problems get over.  
	On the other hand, the liberalization of the Indian economy
is proving to be more open than the 'open' economies of the west.  The
present tax rules seem to favour the import of machines.  The
indigenously manufactured PARAM will have to pay import duty on the
components, excise duty and sales tax on the finished product.
Compare this with a Cray, which can be imported without paying import
duties by certain user groups such as educational and R&D
institutions.  If this is to be so then PARAM would lose out on its
cost advantage and more importantly India would suffer a setback in
its own MPP initiative.  Carla Hills will be pleased with that.
	To get going in its second mission, C-DAC needs Rs 50 crore
during the Eighth Five Year Plan period.  Of this Rs 10 crore will be
raised internally and Rs 8 crore per annum form the government.
Regarding the reports that the plan budget for DoE has been reduced in
the Budget'92, Bhatkar felt that it will not affect C-DAC much.
"C-DAC has been getting support of around Rs 10 crore annually from
the government during the first mission.  So we expect the government
to support in the same way", said Bhatkar.  He feels the present
indications are that C-DAC will get the required financial backing.
However to raise Rs 10 crore on its own it will have to get more
involved in commercial and marketing activities.
	For C-DAC, the first mission was a technological success.  The
development of PARAM along with applications software is a matter of
pride for C-DAC and the scientific community.  Now in the second
mission C-DAC will have to do more than make PARAM a technological
success.  In all probability, the technological aspect of developing an
affordable teraFLOP machine will not worrying Bhatkar and his team.
They should be more worried about its commercial acceptability in
India.				Ebrahim Mathew in Bangalore


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