A shared memory environment for hypercubes

Amit Agarwala, Chita Das

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

This paper describes the design and implementation of a shared virtual memory (SVM) system for the nCUBE 2 hypercube multicomputer. The SVM system provides the user a single coherent address space across all nodes. It is implemented at the user level in a C programming environment using high level constructs to support data sharing. Shared variables are treated as objects rather than pages. We have improved upon an existing algorithm for maintaining coherency in the SVM system, thus achieving a reduction in the number of inter-node messages required in coherency maintenance. Detailed timing analysis is conducted to analyze the feasibility of this shared environment. Experimental results indicate that parallel programs running under an SVM system show linear speedup, suggesting that SVM systems could provide an effective programming environment for the next generation of distributed memory parallel computers. A bottleneck of this implementation seems to be the expensive interrupt handling by the nCUBE 2 kernel.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 1994 International Conference on Parallel Processing, ICPP 1994
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
PagesI200-I207
ISBN (Print)0849324939, 9780849324932
DOIs
StatePublished - 1994
Event23rd International Conference on Parallel Processing, ICPP 1994 - Raleigh, NC, United States
Duration: Aug 15 1994Aug 19 1994

Publication series

NameProceedings of the International Conference on Parallel Processing
Volume1
ISSN (Print)0190-3918

Other

Other23rd International Conference on Parallel Processing, ICPP 1994
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityRaleigh, NC
Period8/15/948/19/94

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Software
  • Mathematics(all)
  • Hardware and Architecture

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