CRL

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Abstract
This paper introduces the C Region Library (CRL), a new all-software distributed shared memory (DSM) system. CRL requires no special compiler, hardware, or operating system support beyond the ability to send and receive messages. It provides a simpl e, portable shared address space pro- gramming model that is capable of delivering good performance on a wide range of multiprocessor and distributed system architectures. We have developed CRL implementations for two platforms: the CM-5, a commercial multi- computer, and the MIT Alewife machine, an experimental multiprocessor offering efficient support for both message passing and shared memory. We present results for up to 128 processors on the CM-5 and up to 32 processors on Alewife. In a set of controlled experiments, we demonstrate that CRL is the first all-software DSM system capable of delivering performance competitive with hardware DSMs. CRL achieves speedups within 30% of those provided by Alewife's native support for shared memory, even for challenging applications (Barnes-Hut) and small problem sizes.

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