Communication in the Raid distributed database system

The basic functions required from a communication subsystem in order to support a distributed, reliable, reconfigurable, and replicated database environment are identified. These functions include reliable multicast, remote procedure calls (RPCs), inexpensive datagram services, and efficient local interprocess communication (IPC). Data obtained via a series of experiments that measure the performance of several local interprocess communication methods are reported, and a kernel-level multicasting facility, the Raid system running on different network configurations, and a Push multicast program are discussed. Push is a tool that allows measurements to be conducted by supplementing and/or modifying the communication facilities in the operating system kernel while it is running