This thesis presents the design and implementation of our novel hybrid software DSM system. We call our system hybrid home-based EAC (HHEAC) since the system implements our novel exclusive access consistency model (EAC) based on the hybrid protocol of the homeless and home-based protocols. HHEAC guarantees only that shared variables inside a critical section are up to date before the accesses. Other shared variables outside a critical section are guaranteed to be up to date after the next barrier synchronisation.
Our home-based DSM implementation is different from the previous implementations in that a home node does not receive any diffs from non-home nodes until the next barrier synchronisation. It is also different in that during a lock synchronisation required diffs are prefetched before the critical section, which reduces not only data traffic but also page faults inside the critical section.
We also present a diff integration technique that can further unnecessary data traffic during lock synchronisation. This technique is especially effective in reducing data traffic for migratory applications.
Finally, we develop a home migration technique that solves the wrong home assignment problem in the home-based protocol. Our technique is different from others in that an optimum home node is decided before updating a home node.
To evaluate our system, we performed various experiments with well-known benchmark applications, including a novel parallel neural network application.The performance evaluation shows that HHEAC is more scalable than other DSM systems such as TreadMarks and removes the home assignment problem in the conventional home-based protocol.
