Native ATM Application Programmer Interface Testbed for Cluster-Based Computing

This paper investigates the use of ATM for cluster based computing. The need for a native ATM API is discussed as well as the performance of message passing libraries (MPL) that are written to use such an API to exploit the advantages of a high-speed network for cluster-based computing. The MPLs offer a standard interface, such as PVM or MPI, and interoperate with existing TCP/IP and UDP/IP based versions in addition to the ATM API environment. The interoperability extensions made to two MPLs, MPI and Prowess, are described with a hybrid environment of both ATM and TCP-based legacy network technology. The native ATM API is described in this paper which supports cluster based computing that may be geographically distributed. Furthermore, this API provides a reliable transport interface to the MPL which has been optimized for an ATM environment. The transport protocol is a low-state design that optimizes the performance based on the available bandwidth, buffer constraints, propagation delay characteristics, and security requirements of a particular connection, and will rapidly evolve if the connection characteristics change.