Distributed shared object memory
Guedes, P.; Castro, M.
Workstation Operating Systems, 1993. Proceedings., Fourth Workshop on
Volume , Issue , 14-15 Oct 1993 Page(s):142 - 149
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/WWOS.1993.348158
Summary:This paper describes the goals, programming model and design of
DiSOM, a software based distributed shared memory system for a
multicomputer composed of heterogeneous nodes connected by a high-speed
network. A typical configuration is a cluster of tens of
high-performance workstations and shared-memory multiprocessors of two
or three different architectures, each with a processing power of a few
hundred MIPS and several hundred kilobytes of memory, and connected by a
high-speed interconnect such as ATM. Programs in DiSOM are written using
a shared-memory multiprocessor model where synchronization objects are
associated with data items. Programs use a threads library to start new
threads, possibly at a specified node, and to synchronize between
concurrent threads. Programs must call the synchronization primitives
explicitly, as they would in a shared-memory multiprocessor. The system
traps these calls and uses the information to drive both distributed
synchronization and the memory coherence protocol. DiSOM uses the entry
consistency memory model to ensure coherence. This model guarantees
memory consistency, as long as an access to a data item is enclosed
between an acquire and a release on the synchronization object
associated with the data item. Stronger consistency models, such as
release consistency and processor consistency, may also be supported
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