Title :
Mether: supporting the shared memory model on computing clusters
Author :
Minnich, R.G. ; Pryor, D.V.
Author_Institution :
Supercomputing Res. Center, Bowie, MD, USA
Abstract :
Mether, a distributed shared memory (DSM) that runs under the SunOS 4.0 operating system, is described. Mether provides a shared memory space for computers connected via a network such as Ethernet. User programs access the Mether address space as they do any other memory. Mether provides extensions to support efficient synchronization and utilization of the computers in the network. The most recent version of Mether is implemented via a modified NFS system, called MNFS (for Mether-NFS); this system supports a DSM as part of the file system space, while significantly improving the consistency semantics of NFS. One parallel application run on a cluster of SPARCStations is a Monte Carlo radiative heat transfer simulation. The performance achieved on the cluster was within an order of magnitude of the performance one would expect to achieve on a 16-processor model of the C90 supercomputer.<>
Keywords :
computer networks; shared memory systems; storage management; C90 supercomputer; MNFS; Mether address space; Mether-NFS; Monte Carlo radiative heat transfer simulation; SPARCStations; SunOS; computing clusters; consistency semantics; distributed shared memory; file system space; modified NFS system; operating system; parallel application; shared memory model; shared memory space; synchronization; Application software; Assembly; Computer networks; Distributed computing; File systems; Operating systems; Sun; Supercomputers; Time sharing computer systems; Trademarks;
Conference_Titel :
Compcon Spring '93, Digest of Papers.
Conference_Location :
San Francisco, CA, USA
Print_ISBN :
0-8186-3400-6
DOI :
10.1109/CMPCON.1993.289734
