Design Issues for User-Level Network Interface Protocols on Myrinet

This paper surveys the design issues for user-level network interface protocols for modern high-speed networks such as Myrinet. It first explains the principles of such protocols through a simple, unreliable protocol. Next, six important design issues are discussed in more detail: data transfers, address translation, protection, control transfers, reliability, and multicast. The design issues are illustrated by performance measurements on a Myrinet cluster and by representative examples taken from 11 communication systems for Myrinet.

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