Thread migration and communication minimization in DSM systems

Author

Thitikamol, Kritchalach ; Keleher, Peter

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci., Maryland Univ., College Park, MD, USA

Volume

87

Issue

3

fYear

1999

fDate

3/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

487

Lastpage

497

Abstract

Networks of workstations are characterized by dynamic resource capacities. Such environments can only be efficiently exploited by applications that are dynamically reconfigurable. The paper explores mechanisms and policies that enable online reconfiguration of shared memory applications through thread migration. We describe the design and preliminary performance of a distributed shared memory (DSM) system that performs online remappings of threads to nodes based on sharing behavior. Our system obtains complete sharing information through a novel correlation tracking phase that avoids the thread thrashing that characterizes previous approaches. This information is used to evaluate the communication required by a given thread mapping and to predict the resulting performance

Keywords

distributed shared memory systems; multi-threading; reconfigurable architectures; resource allocation; workstation clusters; DSM systems; communication minimization; correlation tracking phase; distributed shared memory system; dynamic resource capacities; dynamically reconfigurable applications; networks of workstations; online reconfiguration; online remappings; preliminary performance; shared memory applications; sharing information; thread mapping; thread migration; thread thrashing; Application software; Associate members; Computer science; Intelligent networks; Load management; Parallel processing; Telecommunication traffic; Virtual machining; Workstations; Yarn;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Proceedings of the IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9219

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/5.747869

Filename

747869