Name
Abstract | ||
|---|---|---|
Summary form only given. Synchronization is a crucial operation in many parallel applications. As network latency approaches thousands of processor cycles for large scale multiprocessors, conventional synchronization techniques are failing to keep up with the increasing demand for scalable and efficient synchronization operations. We present a mechanism that allows atomic synchronization operations to be executed on the home memory controller of the synchronization variable. By performing atomic operations near where the data resides, our proposed mechanism can significantly reduce the number of network messages required by synchronization operations. Our proposed design also enhances performance by using fine-grained updates to selectively "push " the results of offloaded synchronization operations back to processors when they complete (e.g., when a barrier count reaches the desired value). We use the proposed mechanism to optimize two of the most widely used synchronization operations, barriers and spin locks. Our simulation results show that the proposed mechanism outperforms conventional implementations based on load-linked/store-conditional, processor-centric atomic instructions, conventional memory-side atomic instructions, or active messages. It speeds up conventional barriers by up to 2.1 (4 processors) to 61.9 (256 processors) and spin locks by a factor of up to 2.0 (4 processors) to 10.4 (256 processors). |
Year | DOI | Venue |
|---|---|---|
2004 | 10.1109/IPDPS.2004.1302981 | IPDPS |
Keywords | Field | DocType |
active memory operation,parallel processing,network latency approach,distributed memory systems,home memory controller,large scale multiprocessor,active messages,memory-side atomic instructions,processor cycles,synchronization techniques,processor-centric atomic instruction,synchronisation,parallel application,concurrent computing,reduced instruction set computing,system performance,distributed processing | Registered memory,Synchronization,Interleaved memory,Uniform memory access,Computer science,Parallel computing,Data synchronization,Distributed memory,Synchronization (computer science),Compare-and-swap,Distributed computing | Conference |
ISBN | Citations | PageRank |
0-7695-2132-0 | 5 | 0.50 |
References | Authors | |
14 | 3 | |
Name | Order | Citations | PageRank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lixin Zhang | 1 | 571 | 45.96 |
| Zhen Fang | 2 | 49 | 4.45 |
| John B. Carter | 3 | 1785 | 162.82 |