ARTS of PEACE—A High-Performance Middleware Layer for Parallel Distributed Computing

✍ Scribed by Lars Büttner; Jörg Nolte; Wolfgang Schröder-Preikschat

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 889 KB
• Volume: 59
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0743-7315
• DOI: 10.1006/jpdc.1999.1570

✦ Synopsis

Parallel cluster architectures are an effective way to build high-performance computer systems at a moderate price. Consequently, clusters will become very attractive to parallel applications and high-end parallel servers, which are usually built around distributed object middleware. Commonly used middleware layers like CORBA have been specifically designed for heterogeneous computing within relatively slow networks. In contrast PC and workstation clusters are homogeneous systems, which can be connected by very high-speed user-level networks. Only very lean and efficient middleware layers are therefore able to use such kinds of communication infrastructure effectively. In this paper we describe the architecture and implementation of Arts, a high-performance middleware layer developed for the Peace family of parallel operating systems, and show that this middleware is even applicable to the implementation of extremely performance-sensitive virtual shared memory (VSM) systems.