Distributed network computing over local ATM networks

Book · Fri Dec 30 23:00:00 EST 1994

OSTI ID:87619

Lin, M; Hsieh, J; Du, D H.C.; MacDonald, J A ^[1]; Thomas, J P ^[2]

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1. Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States)
2. Minnesota Supercomputer Center Inc., Minneapolis, MN (United States)

Communication between processors has long been the bottleneck of distributed network computing. However, recent progress in switch-based high-speed Local Area Networks (LANs) may be changing this situation. Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is one of the most widely-accepted and emerging high-speed network standards which can potentially satisfy the communication needs of distributed network computing. In this paper, the authors investigate distributed network computing over local ATM networks. They first study the performance characteristics involving end-to-end communication in an environment that includes several types of workstations interconnected via a Fore Systems` ASX-100 ATM Switch. They then compare the communication performance of four different Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). The four APIs were Fore Systems ATM API, BSD socket programming interface, Sun`s Remote Procedure Call (RPC), and the Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) message passing library. Each API represents distributed programming at a different communication protocol layer. They evaluate parallel Matrix Multiplication over the local ATM network. The experimental results show that network computing is promising over local ATM networks.

• OSTI ID: 87619
• Report Number(s): CONF-941118--; ISBN 0-8186-6605-6
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
DATA TRANSMISSION
DISTRIBUTED DATA PROCESSING
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
LOCAL AREA NETWORKS
PERFORMANCE