Enabling High Performance Data Transfer on Cluster Architecture

In this article, we present some results on the communication performance of TCP/IP in a cluster of Pentium based workstations connected by a Gigabit Ethernet network. The experiments were performed in order to identify the bottlenecks in the communication protocol stack. We outline our performance measurements and suggest means to improve the overall performance of TCP/IP. Finally, we present the performance of VIA as an alternative for high-speed communication.