Spider : An agent-based message-passing architecture
Dorian Birsan · cIRcle (University of British Columbia) · 2009
Communication is a driving force in the high-performance parallel computing environment of the 90's. Obtaining good performance eventually requires optimizing communication, hence the importance of controlling network resources. Current network designs offer a closed, rigid interface that emphasizes hardware solutions for routing, leaving little room for communication control. In this thesis we address interface issues between network hardware and communication software. An open, flexible interface is proposed, which does not enforce communication policies, but offers mechanisms for user control over messaging. Control is exerted by programming the network, using a message-centered approach, as opposed to traditional node-centered approaches. This distinction is based on where the control lies: in the message or in the node. Messages are no longer passively communicated from source to destination, but are instead active, intelligent, and self-routing. We call them communication agents. SPIDER (Simple Programmable Interface Design for Efficient Routing) is a user-programmable routing kernel that supports the message-centered programming paradigm with communication agents. We present a general design and a system prototype for a transputerbased multicomputer. The implementation was used to explore the benefits of programming the network. It was found that the paradigm has expressive power for solving communication tasks, is general, reliable and can improve performance in communication-intensive applications.