A kernel level message passing service

[Walter B. Ligon III]

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> for cluster programming.  note that this topic is different from VIA-type
> user-level hardware access.  and if you want a low-overhead message
> passing scheme that's still protected in the conventional sense, 
> why not use good old UDP or even IP datagrams.  (I wonder sometimes
> if the heavy machinery of TCP really makes sense in the context 
> of private, switched networks.  does anyone have a count of dropped
> frames inside a normal cluster?)

Actually, we have a little project going to do that, more or less.  We're
actually pitching IP altoghter, but staying with the existing Linux network
protocol framework to implement a lightweight, reliable messaging service
that continues to work with the existing sockets interface.  It requires
very little change to user code to use it.  The question is - how much
performance savings is due to the protocol, and how much is due to the
interface?  I don't claim to know the answer, so we figured we'd try it out
and see what happens.

Walt

-- 
Dr. Walter B. Ligon III
Associate Professor
ECE Department
Clemson University