PVM And IP Multicast

This report describes a 1994 demonstration implementation of PVM that uses IP multicast. PVM's one-to-many unicast implementation of its pvm mcast() function is replaced with reliable IP multicast. Performance of PVM using IP multicast over local and wide-area networks is measured and compared with the original unicast implementation. Current limitations of IP multicast are noted. - v - 1. Introduction PVM, Parallel Virtual Machine [7], is a message-passing system that allows a collection of heterogeneous computers on a network to function as a virtual parallel computer. PVM supplies the functions to automatically start up tasks on the logical distributed-memory computer and allows the tasks to communicate and synchronize with each other. PVM is used by researchers to speed up computing applications by harnessing the power of workstations and supercomputers connected by a network. This report describes describes extensions made to PVM to support IP multicast as part of PVM's one-to..