PARAM#PARAM 8000

{{further|Supercomputing in India}}

C-DAC was created in November 1987, originally as the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing Technology (C-DACT). This was in response to issues purchasing supercomputers from foreign sources. The Indian Government decided to try and develop indigenous computing technology.

The PARAM 8000 was the first machine in the series and was built from scratch. A prototype was benchmarked at the "1990 Zurich Super-computing Show":This is likely the CONPAR 90 - VAPP IV, Joint International Conference on Vector and Parallel Processing, which took place in Zurich, Switzerland, 10–13 September 1990. The statement is difficult to fully attest to other than the referenced article. The proceedings of the conference can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-53065-7 of the machines that ran at the show it came second only to one from the United States.

A 64-node machine was delivered in August 1991. Each node used Inmos T800/T805 transputers. A 256-node machine had a theoretical performance of 1GFLOPS, however in practice had a sustained performance of 100-200MFLOPS. PARAM 8000 was a distributed memory MIMD architecture with a reconfigurable interconnection network.

The PARAM 8000 was noted to be 28 times more powerful than the Cray X-MP that the government originally requested, for the same $10 million cost quoted for it.

The computer was a success and was exported to Germany, United Kingdom and Russia.{{cite web|url=http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2001/02/26/stories/102618ma.htm |title=Only protected usable knowledge can create wealth. |publisher=Thehindubusinessline.com |date=26 February 2001 |access-date=10 September 2016}} Apart from taking over the home market, PARAM attracted 14 other buyers with its relatively low price tag of $350,000.{{cite web |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1993/03/19/cray-deal-a-casualty-of-atomic-weapon-fears/24f11e87-effe-4a2c-8976-d3d844cb4275/ |title=CRAY DEAL A CASUALTY OF ATOMIC WEAPON FEARS|newspaper=The Washington Post}}

The computer was also exported to the ICAD Moscow in 1991 under Russian collaboration.{{cite web |url=http://www.cdac.in/html/about/success/moscow.aspx |title=C-DAC furthering ties with ICAD, Moscow: From PARAM 5ooo to PARAM 10000|publisher=Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) |access-date=15 September 2011 }}{{cite web |url=http://www.cdac.in/html/press/1q06/spot563.aspx |title=Supercomputer being developed at Pune, Bangalore will be ready in 6 months| quote=...giving India her first indigenous supercomputer in 1991 (PARAM 8000)|publisher=Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) |access-date=15 September 2011 }}{{cite web|url=https://cdac.in/index.aspx?id=aboutus_digital_india_week|title=Digital India Week}}{{Cite news|url=http://www.thebetterindia.com/82076/india-first-supercomputer-param-cdac-vijay-bhatkar/|title=The Little Known Story of How India's First Indigenous Supercomputer Amazed the World in 1991|date=13 January 2017|work=The Better India|language=en-US}}

PARAM 8600 was an improvement over PARAM 8000. In 1992 C-DAC realised its machines were underpowered and wished to integrate the newly released Intel i860 processor. Each node was created with one i860 and four Inmos T800 transputers. The same PARAS programming environment was used for both the PARAM 8000 and 8600; this meant that programs were portable. Each 8600 cluster was noted to be as powerful as 4 PARAM 8000 clusters.

The PARAM (param vashisht lega) 9000 was designed to be merge cluster processing and massively parallel processing computing workloads. It was first demonstrated in 1994. The design was changed to be modular so that newer processors could be easily accommodated. Typically a system used 32–40 processors, however it could be scaled up to 200 CPUs using the clos network topology. The PARAM 9000/SS was the SuperSPARC II processor variant, the PARAM 9000/US used the UltraSPARC processor, and the PARAM 9000/AA used the DEC Alpha.

The PARAM 10000 was unveiled in 1998 as part of C-DAC's second mission. PARAM 10000 used several independent nodes, each based on the Sun Enterprise 250 server; each such server contained two 400Mhz UltraSPARC II processors. The base configuration had three compute nodes and a server node. The peak speed of this base system was 6.4 GFLOPS.{{cite book | last1=Abraham| last2= Baets|last3=Köppen| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xYgCFX6VnT8C&q=param%2010000&pg=PA54|publisher=Springer| year=2006| title=Applied soft computing technologies: the challenge of complexity| page=54| access-date=15 September 2011| isbn= 9783540316626}} A typical system would contain 160 CPUs and be capable of 100 GFLOPS{{cite book | last=Ram| first= B.| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ICjqr6V9S6UC&q=param%20padma&pg=SA1-PA20|publisher=New Age International| title=Computer Fundamentals, Architecture & Organisation| pages=1–20| access-date=15 September 2011| isbn= 9788122420432| date= December 2009}} But, it was easily scalable to the TFLOP range. Exported to Russia and Singapore.{{cite web|url=http://www.rediff.com/computer/1999/sep/28param.htm|title=Rediff on the Net, Infotech: Exporting speed|date=28 September 1999|work=Rediff.com|access-date=10 September 2016}}

Further computers were made in the PARAM series as one-off supercomputers, rather than serial production machines. From the late 2010s many machines were created as part of the National Supercomputing Mission.

PARAMNet is a high speed high bandwidth low latency network developed for the PARAM series. The original PARAMNet used an 8 port cascadable non-blocking switch developed by C-DAC. Each port provided 400 Mb/s in both directions (thus 2x400 Mbit/s) as it was a full-duplex network. It was first used in PARAM 10000.

PARAMNet II, introduced with PARAM Padma, is capable of 2.5 Gbit/s while working full-duplex. It supports interfaces like Virtual Interface Architecture and Active messages. It uses 8 or 16 port SAN switches.{{cite book | last=Singh| first=Ashok Kumar | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=CzV1MgFH6oMC&q=paramnet&pg=PA217|publisher=Tata McGraw-Hill Education| title=Science And Technology For Civil Service| page=216| access-date=15 September 2011| isbn=9780070655485 | date=July 2007 }}

PARAMNet-3, used in PARAM Yuva and PARAM Yuva-II, is next generation high performance networking component for building supercomputing systems. PARAMNet-3 consists of tightly integrated hardware and software components. The hardware components consist of Network Interface Cards (NIC) based on CDAC's fourth generation communication co-processor "GEMINI", and modular 48-port Packet Routing Switch "ANVAY". The software component "KSHIPRA" is a lightweight protocol stack designed to exploit capabilities of hardware and to provide industry standard interfaces to the applications. Other application areas identified for deployment of PARAMNet-3 are storage and database applications.{{cite web|title = PARAMNet3| url = https://cdac.in/index.aspx?id=hpc_ss_paramnet3|quote=PARAMNet-3, a high performance clusters interconnect developed indigenously by CDAC.|access-date=26 November 2018 }}

PARAM supercomputers are used by both public and private{{cite news | title= PARAM Yuva supercomputer now open to private sector| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2906865.stm| newspaper=Indian Express| quote=With an enhanced storage capacity of 200 TB from 25 TB, a large number of users can use it for data processing and storage at the same time.|date=26 February 2011|access-date=15 September 2011 }} operators for various purposes. As of 2008, 52 PARAMs have been deployed. Of these, 8 are located in Russia, Singapore, Germany and Canada.

PARAMs have also been sold to Tanzania, Armenia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Ghana, Myanmar, Nepal, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.{{cite web |url=http://www.cdac.in/html/press/3q09/spot687.aspx|title=C-DAC Press Release: Faster PARAM to take on US supercomputer |access-date=15 September 2011 }}

• EKA
• SAGA-220, a 220 TeraFLOP supercomputer built by ISRO
• Supercomputing in India
• Wipro Supernova

{{reflist|group=note}}

{{Reflist|refs=

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{{cite book |last1=Van der Steen |first1=Aad J. |last2=Dongarra |first2=Jack J |title=Overview of recent supercomputers |date=1995 |publisher=National Computing Facilities Foundation (Netherlands) |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2810620}}

{{cite web |url=http://archive.outlookbusiness.com/article_v3.aspx?artid=102117 |title=God, Man And Machine|publisher=PARAM SUKHADIA India |date=1 July 1998 |access-date=15 September 2011 }}

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}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20100102081213/http://www.cdac.in/HTML/parampma.asp PARAM Padma information page from C-DAC website]
• [https://nsmindia.in/node/165 National Supercomputing Mission, INDIA]

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Category:Supercomputers

Category:Information technology in India

Category:Supercomputing in India