A data base for on-line event analysis on a distributed memory machine

Parallel in-memory databases can enhance the structuring and parallelization of programs used in High Energy Physics (HEP). Efficient database access routines are used as communication primitives which hide the communication topology in contrast to the more explicit communications like PVM or MPI. A parallel in-memory database, called SPIDER, has been implemented on a 32 node Meiko CS-2 distributed memory machine. The SPIDER primitives generate a lower overhead than the one generated by PVM or MPI. The even reconstruction program, CPREAD, of the CLEAR experiment, has been used as test case. Performance measurements showed that CPREAD interfaced to SPIDER can easily cope with the event rate generated by CPLEAR. (author)