SHRIMP: Architectural and Systems Support for Inexpensive, High-Performance Multicomputers

这个项目正在从商用台式计算机系统和现成的互连中构建一个高性能的多处理器。商用英特尔奔腾工作站板，每个连接内存，磁盘和I/O，连接到Paragon背板。通信使用一种称为虚拟内存映射通信的新机制，它将处理器间通信伪装成对内存的写操作。节点接口将各个节点的内存中的物理页相互映射，因此对一个映射页的写操作会向共享该映射页的其他节点发送消息。各个节点上的操作系统使用它们的普通虚拟内存机制来支持虚拟页面映射。除了这种逐字通信之外，DMA传输也是可用的，控制寄存器位于单个进程的地址空间中。这允许保持用户级保护的高带宽通信。该项目要解决的研究包括实现进程之间的高带宽低延迟通信，新通信机制支持的I/O系统结构，以及由此产生的系统的性能评估。

This project is building a high-performance multiprocessor from commodity desktop computer systems and off-the-shelf interconnects. Commercial Intel Pentium workstation boards, each with attached memory, disk, and I/O, are attached to a Paragon backplane. Communication uses a new mechanism called virtual memory-mapped communication, which disguises interprocessor communication as write operations to memory. The node interface maps physical pages in the memories of individual nodes to each other, so that a write to one mapped page results in messages to other nodes that share the mapped page. The operating systems on the individual nodes use their ordinary virtual memory mechanism to support virtual page mapping. In addition to this word-by-word communication, DMA transfers are available, with control registers located in the address space of individual processes. This allows high bandwidth communication that maintains user-level protection. Research to be addressed in the project includes the achievement of high-bandwith low-latency communication between processes, the structure of an I/O system supported by the new communication mechanism, and performance evaluation of the resulting system.