Parallel analysis of data on a multi-node VAX cluster

This paper describes a software package MAW, developed for analysis of particle-physics experimental data using a farm of VAX workstations connected to low-cost hard disks. Parallelism is achieved by submitting identical copies of the analysis code to all nodes. Direct access to events through lists of pointers provides an efficient means to select subsets of the data. This system makes efficient use of available CPU power while minimising network load in data access.