Abstract: A method, apparatus, article of manufacture, and a memory structure for configuring a massively parallel processing system is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of selecting one of the interconnected nodes as a coordinator node, and the remaining nodes a non-coordinator nodes, the coordinator node for controlling the configuration of the parallel processing system; defining, in the coordinator node, a parallel processing system configuration having member nodes; and multicasting the parallel processing system configuration to the nodes. The apparatus comprises a means for performing the steps described above, and the article of manufacture comprises a program storage device tangibly embodying computer instructions for performing the above method steps.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, article of manufacture, and a memory structure for selecting a coordinator node to configure a parallel processing system having a plurality of interconnected nodes. The method comprises the steps of: multicasting a best available node list and a best desired node list from each node to each node; receiving the best available node list and the best desired node list from each node in each node; and selecting the coordinator node as the node originating a best available node list that includes every node in the desired node list. If no node is identified as originating a best available node list that includes every node in the desired list, the node originating a best available node list that includes the greatest number of nodes in the desired node list is selected as the coordinator node.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, article of manufacture, and a memory stricture for synchronizing nodes in configuring a massively parallel processing system is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of receiving a registration request from each of the non-coordinator nodes in the coordinator node and, after a registration request has been received from all of the non-coordinator nodes, sending a wakeup message from the coordinator node to each of the non-coordinator nodes to wake the non-coordinator nodes from a sleep state. In another embodiment of the invention, the method comprises the steps of transmitting a registration request from a non-coordinator node to a coordinator node; commanding the non-coordinator node to enter a sleep state; receiving a multicast wakeup message from the coordinator node in the non-coordinator node after a registration request is received from all of the non-coordinator nodes in the coordinator node; and waking the non-coordinator node in response to the wakeup message.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, article of manufacture, and a memory structure for selecting nodes while configuring a parallel processing system is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of multicasting a request from a coordinator node to the non-coordinator node to transmit a list of nodes reachable by the non-coordinator node; receiving the list of nodes reachable by the non-coordinator node in the coordinator node; generating a global view of the nodes reachable by the non-coordinator node; generating a node list having member nodes belonging to the configured parallel processing system according to a first criteria; and transmitting the parallel processing node list to the member nodes. The apparatus comprises a means for performing the steps described above, and the article of manufacture comprises a program storage device tangibly embodying computer instructions for performing the above method steps.