JIAJIA: A software DSM system: Based on a new cache coherence protocol

Abstract

This paper describes design and evaluation of a software distributed shared memory (DSM) system called JIAJIA. JIAJIA is a home-based software DSM system in which physical memories of multiple computers are combined to form a larger shared space. It implements the lock-based cache coherence protocol which totally eliminates directory and maintains coherence through accessing write notices kept on the lock. Our experiments with some widely accepted DSM benchmarks such as SPLASH2 program suite and NAS Parallel Benchmarks indicate that, compared to recent software DSMs such as CVM, higher performance is achieved by JIAJIA. Besides, JIAJIA can solve large problems that cannot be solved by other software DSMs due to memory size limitation.