Parallel processing with windows NT networks

Workstation-based parallel processing is an area that is still dominated by Unix-based systems. We have been building new methods for shared-memory parallel processing systems on top of Windows NT based networks of machines. As of present we have been involved in four related systems, called Calypso NT, Chime, Malaxis and MILAN. All of these are middleware, that is they are system level libraries and utility programs that allow programmers to utilize a network efficiently for high volume computations. Calypso was first built on Unix [BDK95], and then ported to Windows NT. Chime and Malaxis are NT systems and MILAN is still under the design phase. This paper describes the systems, the techniques used to implement them on Windows NT and the roadblocks from a Unix programmer's point of view.