1  Why do we parallelize?

Parallel & distributed processing can be used to:

• speed up processing (wall time)

• lower memory footprint (per machine)

• avoid data transfers (compute where data lives)

• other reasons, e.g. asynchronous user interface

We may choose to parallelize on:

• Your personal laptop or work desktop computer (single user)

• A shared, powerful computer (multiple users)

• High-performance compute (HPC) cluster (multiple users) with a job scheduler, e.g. Slurm, Son of Grid Engine (SGE)