Low Latency Message-Passing for Reflective Memory Networks

: In this paper we present an efficient design for message passing over a reflective memory network. First, we consider the attributes of reflective memory communication networks and the requirements to efficiently build message-passing functionality on these networks. We then introduce the BillBoard Protocol, a lock-free protocol which provides lowlatency send, receive, and multicast functionality to higher-level applications over reflective memory networks. The communication protocol and an implementation on SCRAMNet is described in detail. Lastly, the performance of this protocol is demonstrated. 1 Introduction Clusters of Workstations are becoming increasingly popular as a platform for parallel and distributed computing. For parallel computing, clusters offer a cost effective alternative to conventional parallel computers[1, 3, 13]. For distributed computing they offer good scalability and high availability. Since they use commodity processors and networks, the performance of clu..