CC-NUMA Page Table Management and Redundant Linked List Based Cache Coherence Protocol

This paper presents a unique virtual memory page management scheme for loosely coupled CCNUMA platforms based on the Scalable Coherent Interface (SCI). It differs from the traditional design by considering a physically distributed network which includes hardware controlled cache coherence to implement parallel processing. The approach taken emphasizes isolation of nodes, as well as minimization of remote accesses. The page management strategy shown in this paper can increase system performance by maintaining page table locality, while increasing the reliability of a physically distributed DSM system. A 32 bit processor system example is introduced to demonstrate the principles. Additionally, in the case of a large scale multiprocessor systems, a distributed directory based cache coherence protocol that facilitates performance and error recovery is presented. Many distributed directory based protocols, such as SCI, use a doubly-linked list structure to maintain cache coherence. This wor..