Experience distributing objects in an SMMP OS

Designing and implementing system software so that it scales well on shared-memory multiprocessors (SMMPs) has proven to be surprisingly challenging. To improve scalability, most designers to date have focused on concurrency by iteratively eliminating the need for locks and reducing lock contention....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:ACM transactions on computer systems 2007-08, Vol.25 (3), p.1-52
Main Authors: APPAVOO, Jonathan, DA SILVA, Dilma, SCARES, Livio, KRIEGER, Orran, AUSLANDER, Marc, OSTROWSKI, Michal, ROSENBURG, Bryan, WATERLAND, Amos, WISNIEWSKI, Robert W, XENIDIS, Jimi, STUMM, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Coding, codes
Computer science
control theory
systems
Computer systems and distributed systems. User interface
Design
Design. Technologies. Operation analysis. Testing
Electronics
Exact sciences and technology
Information, signal and communications theory
Integrated circuits
Integrated circuits by function (including memories and processors)
Microprocessors
Scalability
Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices
Signal and communications theory
Software
Software engineering
Studies
Telecommunications and information theory
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Summary:Designing and implementing system software so that it scales well on shared-memory multiprocessors (SMMPs) has proven to be surprisingly challenging. To improve scalability, most designers to date have focused on concurrency by iteratively eliminating the need for locks and reducing lock contention. However, our experience indicates that locality is just as, if not more, important and that focusing on locality ultimately leads to a more scalable system. In this paper, we describe a methodology and a framework for constructing system software structured for locality, exploiting techniques similar to those used in distributed systems. Specifically, we found two techniques to be effective in improving scalability of SMMP operating systems: (i) an object-oriented structure that minimizes sharing by providing a natural mapping from independent requests to independent code paths and data structures, and (ii) the selective partitioning, distribution, and replication of object implementations in order to improve locality. We describe concrete examples of distributed objects and our experience implementing them. We demonstrate that the distributed implementations improve the scalability of operating-system-intensive parallel workloads. {PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
ISSN:0734-2071
1557-7333