PRINCIPLE AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A MONITOR SYSTEM FOR PARALLEL AND DISTRIBUTED COMPUTERS
Wu Bai · Chinese Journal of Computers · 1998
This paper introduces the principle and implementation technique ofMS-1 which is a universal behavior monitor system for parallel and distributed com-puter system- MS-1 is a distributed monitor system based on the idea of event-driv-en and technique of hybrid implementation. All its hardware units are designed tobe the form of the extension boards for PC computers. Each unit, combining a PCcomputer and some software, form a monitor agent. The monitor agents then con-nect to each other in a LAN to form a distributed monitor system. The hardware u-nits include a time base generator (TBG) and one or several monitor data probes(MDP). Providing a high-speed buffer, each monitor agent has a peak performanceof 10 million events per second. The synchronization of the clock signal of eachmonitor agent is based on a high accuracy phase lock technique, which provides atime resolution of 100ns in a LAN area. This monitor system has been used in theprocess of developing and debugging of the prototype of TJ-MPP which is alarge parallel computer system designed by North China Institute of Computer Tech-nology. In fact , the monitor system can be used in the process of developing, de-bugging and tuning of the computer systems connected or coordinated in any way.