Providing a High-Performance VIA-Module for LAM/MPI

The Virtual Interface Architecture (VIA) was introduced to define a common set of features that are suitable to build high-speed networks. Today the interface of VIA serves as access point to a wide range of system area networks. M-VIA is a software that provides the VIA interface on top of several Ethernet cards. The overhead of TCP/IP protocols is avoided by running M-VIA. To benefit from this performance we developed a LAM/MPI module that utilizes VIA functions to transmit data. The key concepts of data transmission and memory management are presented by this paper. Furthermore a comparative performance analysis is included.