ATM and fast Ethernet network interfaces for user-level communication

Abstract

Fast Ethernet and ATM are two attractive network technologies for interconnecting workstation clusters for parallel and distributed computing. This paper compares network interfaces with and without programmable co-processors for the two types of networks using the U-Net communication architecture to provide low-latency and high-bandwidth communication. U-Net provides protected, user-level access to the network interface and offers application-level round-trip latencies as low as 60 /spl mu/sec over Fast Ethernet and 90 /spl mu/sec over ATM. The design of the network interface and the underlying network fabric have a large bearing on the U-Net design and performance. Network interfaces with programmable co-processors can transfer data directly to and from user space while others require aid from the operating system kernel. The paper provides detailed performance analysis of U-Net for Fast Ethernet and ATM, including application-level performance on a set of Split-C parallel benchmarks. These results show that high-performance computing is possible on a network of PCs connected via Fast Ethernet.