Design Choices in the SHRIMP System: An Empirical Study

The SHRIMP cluster-computing system has progressed to a point of relative maturity; a variety of applications are running on a 16-node system. We have enough experience to understand what we did right and wrong in designing and building the system. In this paper we discuss some of the lessons we learned about computer architecture, and about the challenges involved in building a significant working system in an academic research environment. We evaluate significant design choices by modifying the network interface firmware and the system software in order to empirically compare our design to other approaches.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1998
• Where: ISCA
• Authors: Matthias A. Blumrich, Richard Alpert, Yuqun Chen, Douglas W. Clark, Stefanos N. Damianakis, Cezary Dubnicki, Edward W. Felten, Liviu Iftode, Kai Li, Margaret Martonosi, Robert A. Shillner
• Keywords: Hardware, ISCA 1998, Network Interface Firmware, Relative Maturity, Significant Design Choices