Abstract
In this paper we propose a simple extension to the I/O architecture of scalable multiprocessors that optimizes page swap-outs significantly. More specifically, we propose the use of an optical ring network for I/O operations that not only transfers swapped-out pages between the local memories and the disks, but also acts as a system-wide write cache. In order to evaluate our proposal, we use detailed execution-driven simulations of several out-of-core parallel applications running on an 8-node scalable multiprocessor. Our results demonstrate that the NWCache provides consistent performance improvements, coming mostly from faster page swap-outs, victim caching, and reduced contention. Based on these results, our main conclusion is that the NWCache is highly efficient for most out-of-core parallel applications.
This research was supported by Brazilian CNPq.
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© 1999 Springer-Verlag
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Carrera, E.V., Bianchini, R. (1999). NWCache: Optimizing disk accesses via an optical network/write cache hybrid. In: Rolim, J., et al. Parallel and Distributed Processing. IPPS 1999. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1586. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg . https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0097971
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0097971
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