Towards Transparent and Efficient Software Distributed Shared Memory

Despite a large research effort, software distributed shared memory systems have not been widely used to run parallel applications across clusters of computers. The higher performance of hardware multiprocessors makes them the preferred platform for developing and executing applications. In addition, most applications are distributed only in binary format for a handful of popular hardware systems. Due to their limited functionality, software systems cannot directly execute the applications developed for hardware platforms. We have developed a system called Shasta that attempts to address the issues of efficiency and transparency that have hindered wider acceptanceof software systems. Shastais adistributedsharedmemory system that supports coherence at a fine granularity in software and can efficiently exploit small-scale SMP nodes by allowing processes on the same node to share data at hardware speeds. This paper focuses on our goal of tapping into large classes of commercially availab...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1997
• Where: SOSP
• Authors: Daniel J. Scales, Kourosh Gharachorloo
• Keywords: Hardware, Hardware Platforms, Operating System, Parallel Applications, SOSP 1997