Journal of KIISE:Computer Systems and Theory (한국정보과학회논문지:시스템및이론)

Korean Institute of Information Scientists and Engineers (한국정보과학회)
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A Software VIA based PC Cluster System on SCI Network

SCI 네트워크 상의 소프트웨어 VIA기반 PC글러스터 시스템

  • 신정희 (university of southern california 컴퓨터공학과) ;
  • 정상화 (부산대학교 컴퓨터공학과) ;
  • 박세진 (부산대학교 컴퓨터공학과)
  • Published : 2002.04.01
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Abstract

The performance of a PC cluster system is limited by the use of traditional communication protocols, such as TCP/IP because these protocols are accompanied with significant software overheads. To overcome the problem, systems based on user-level interface for message passing without intervention of kernel have been developed. The VIA(Virtual Interface Architecture) is one of the representative user-level interfaces which provide low latency and high bandwidth. In this paper, a VIA system is implemented on an SCI(Scalable Coherent Interface) network based PC cluster. The system provides both message-passing and shared-memory programming environments and shows the maximum bandwidth of 84MB/s and the latency of $8{\mu}s$. The system also shows better performance in comparison with other comparable computer systems in carrying out parallel benchmark programs.

PC 클러스터 시스템에서 노드 사이의 데이타 교환을 위해 사용되는 TCP/IP 기반 통신 방식은 소프트웨어 부하가 크기 때문에 전체 시스템의 성능을 저하시키는 요인이 된다. 이러한 문제점을 해결하기 위해 사용자 수준 통신(user-level communication) 구조가 제안되었다. 사용자 수준 통신은 성능에 치명적인 영향을 미치는 커널을 통신 단계에서 제거함으로써 적은 지연 시간과 높은 대역폭을 제공하며, 이러한 우수한 성능은 업계 표준인 VIA(Virtual Interface Architecture)를 만들었다. 본 논문에서는 공유 메모리 기반 Interconnect의 IEEE 표준인 SCI(Scalable Coherent Interface) 네트워크에 기반하여 VIA 클러스터 시스템을 구현하였다. 본 논문의 클러스터 시스템은 메시지 패싱 및 공유메모리 프로그래밍 환경을 동시에 제공하며, 최대 84MB/s의 대역폭과 $8{\mu}s$의 지연 시간을 가진다. 또한, 본 시스템이 병렬 벤치마크 프로그램의 수행시 비교 대상 시스템들에 비해 성능이 우수함을 입증하였다.

Keywords

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