The shared objects net-interconnected computer (SONiC)

We present a novel approach to parallel computing in a workstation environment. We introduce Replicated Shared Objects as a programming paradigm which allows encapsulation of communication and synchronization operations within an object's implementation. It also provides an easy-to-use interface to the application programmer. Shared Objects Memory implements our programming paradigm as an object-based, replicated distributed shared memory system on top of network-transparent communication in the Mach operating system. Together with a Remote Execution Service it provides a complete environment for execution of shared-memory parallel programs in workstation clusters. Our system allows for definition and configuration of a virtual parallel machine called 'Shared Objects Net-interconnected Computer' within such a cluster through an easy-to-use graphical interface. Besides a description of our programming paradigm and the 'Shared Objects Net-interconnected Computer' this paper includes promising runtime statistics from early experiments, showing that a cluster of four lowend workstations may have comparable performance with a four-processor shared memory multicomputer such as Sequent Balance. (orig.)Available from TIB Hannover: RR 2036(52) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman