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Active messages: a mechanism for integrated communication and computation

Authors:

Thorsten von Eicken,

David E. Culler,

Seth Copen Goldstein,

Klaus Erik SchauserAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News, Volume 20, Issue 2

Pages 256 - 266

https://doi.org/10.1145/146628.140382

Published: 01 April 1992 Publication History

Abstract

The design challenge for large-scale multiprocessors is (1) to minimize communication overhead, (2) allow communication to overlap computation, and (3) coordinate the two without sacrificing processor cost/performance. We show that existing message passing multiprocessors have unnecessarily high communication costs. Research prototypes of message driven machines demonstrate low communication overhead, but poor processor cost/performance. We introduce a simple communication mechanism, Active Messages, show that it is intrinsic to both architectures, allows cost effective use of the hardware, and offers tremendous flexibility. Implementations on nCUBE/2 and CM-5 are described and evaluated using a split-phase shared-memory extension to C, Split-C. We further show that active messages are sufficient to implement the dynamically scheduled languages for which message driven machines were designed. With this mechanism, latency tolerance becomes a programming/compiling concern. Hardware support for active messages is desirable and we outline a range of enhancements to mainstream processors.

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Cited By

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Index Terms

Active messages: a mechanism for integrated communication and computation
1. Computer systems organization
  1. Architectures
    1. Parallel architectures
      1. Multiple instruction, multiple data
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software organization and properties
    1. Contextual software domains
      1. Operating systems
        Communications management

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News

ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News Volume 20, Issue 2

Special Issue: Proceedings of the 19th annual international symposium on Computer architecture (ISCA '92)

May 1992

429 pages

ISSN:0163-5964

DOI:10.1145/146628

Editor:
Allan Gotlieb
New York Univ., New York, NY

Issue’s Table of Contents

ISCA '92: Proceedings of the 19th annual international symposium on Computer architecture
May 1992
439 pages
ISBN:0897915097
DOI:10.1145/139669
Chairman:
Allan Gottlieb
New York Unvi., New York, NY

Copyright © 1992 Authors.

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 April 1992

Published in SIGARCH Volume 20, Issue 2

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Cited By

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3669940.3707225
Thomadakis PChrisochoides N(2024)Runtime support for CPU-GPU high-performance computing on distributed memory platformsFrontiers in High Performance Computing10.3389/fhpcp.2024.14170402Online publication date: 19-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.3389/fhpcp.2024.1417040
Khalilov MDi Girolamo SChrapek MNudelman RBloch GHoefler T(2024)Network-Offloaded Bandwidth-Optimal Broadcast and Allgather for Distributed AIProceedings of the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis10.1109/SC41406.2024.00109(1-17)Online publication date: 17-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/SC41406.2024.00109
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Zhu XHuang DLu Y(2023)Enhancing Distributed Graph Matching Algorithm with MPI RMA based Active Messages2023 9th International Conference on Computer and Communications (ICCC)10.1109/ICCC59590.2023.10507290(1952-1961)Online publication date: 8-Dec-2023
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