Native ATM Application Programmer Interface Testbed for Cluster-based Computing

This paper investigates the use of ATM for cluster based computing. The need for a native ATM API is discussed as well as the performance of message passing libraries (MPL) that are written to use such an API to exploit the advantages of a high-speed network for cluster-based computing. The MPLs offer a standard interface, such as PVM or MPI, and interoperate with existing TCP/IP and UDP/IP based versions in addition to the ATM API environment. The interoperability extensions made to two MPLs, MPI and Prowess, will be described which a hybrid environment of both ATM and TCP-based legacy network technology. The native ATM API is describedin this paperwhich supports cluster basedcomputing that may be geographically distributed. Furthermore, this API provides a reliable transport interface to the MPL which hasbeen optimized for an ATM environment. The transport protocol is a low-state design that optimizes the performance basedon the available bandwidth, buffer constraints, propagationdel..