EPVM-DSM

Enhanced Parallel Virtual Machine - Distributed Shared Memory (EPVM-DSM) is a software extension of Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) that provides shared memory primitives to the programmer. This allows the programmer to shared variables across different processes in different computers. EPVM-DSM is an improvement of PVM-DSM, an undergraduate thesis in De La Salle University. It provides a more natural way in accessing shared variables and reduces greatly the number of network messages sent through using the lazy release memory consistency model by Peter Keleher. In the tests performed, some programs run approximately five times faster using EPVM-DSM than PVM-DSM. Moreover, it reduces the number of network messages sent by up to 97%. EPVM-DSM not only increases readability of programs, but also lessens the communication overhead. Thus, it effectively increases the performance of distributed programs. Keywords: EPVM-DSM, Enhanced PVM-DSM, distributed shared memory, parallel virtual machine, distributed algorithms, lazy release consistency memory model, diffs