Paper Info
Title
StarT-Voyager: A Flexible Platform for Exploring Scalable SMP Issues
Abstract
This paper describes StarT-Voyager, a machine designed as an experimental platform for research in cluster system communication. The heart of StarT-Voyager is a network interface unit (NIU) that connects the memory bus of a PowerPC-based SMP to the MIT Arctic network. The NIU is highly flexible, with its set of functions easily modified by firmware or by programmable hardware, making it possible to compare different communication interfaces and implementation strategies on a common platform. Its flexibility comes from a fast embedded processor and large, fast FPGAs that surround a high-speed protected communication core. Its efficiency comes from a set of primitive operations that are implemented in hardware and are designed to reduce the firmware overhead. Our initial configuration of StarT-Voyager implements four forms of message passing along with S-COMA and NUMA shared memory support. With experimentation on the machine, it can be reconfigured to introduce new mechanisms improving usability and performance.
Year
DOI
Venue
1998
10.1109/SC.1998.10042
SC
Keywords
Field
DocType
different communication interface,parallel systems,shared,mit arctic network,high-speed protected communication core,scalable smp issue,cluster system communication,configurable hardware,flexible platform,flexible,fast embedded processor,experimental platform,firmware overhead,memory bus,message passing,common platform,fast fpgas,network interface unit,network interface,embedded processor,shared memory
Shared memory,Computer science,Parallel computing,Field-programmable gate array,Memory bus,PowerPC,Message passing,Operating system,Firmware,Scalability,Network interface,Embedded system
Conference
ISBN
Citations 
PageRank 
0-8186-8707-X
8
0.80
References 
Authors
3
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Boon S. Ang180.80
Derek Chiou271848.97
Daniel L. Rosenband3726.51
Mike Ehrlich480.80
Larry Rudolph5375.01
Arvind61696210.38