The Affinity Entry Consistency Protocol

In this paper we propose a novel software-only distributed sharedmemory system (SW-DSM), the Affinity Entry Consistency (AEC) protocol. The protocol is based on Entry Consistency but, unlike previous approaches, does not require the explicit association of shared data to synchronization variables, uses the page as its coherence unit, and generates the set of modifications (in the form of diffs) made to shared pages eagerly. The AEC protocol hides the overhead of generating and applying diffs behind synchronization delays, and uses a novel technique, Lock Acquirer Prediction (LAP), to tolerate the overhead of transferring diffs through the network. LAP attempts to predict the next acquirer of a lock at the time of the release, so that the acquirer can be updated even before requesting ownership of the lock. Using execution-driven simulation of real applications, we show that LAP performs very well under AEC; LAP predictions are within the 80-97% range of accuracy. Our results also show...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1997
• Where: ICPP
• Authors: Cristiana Bentes Seidel, Ricardo Bianchini, Claudio Luis de Amorim
• Keywords: AEC Protocol, Affinity Entry Consistency, Distributed And Parallel Computing, Entry Consistency, ICPP 1997