Distributed process groups in the V Kernel

ABSTRACT

The V kernel supports an abstraction of processes, with operations for interprocess communication, process management, and memory management. This abstraction is used as a software base for constructing distributed systems. As a distributed kernel, the V kernel makes intermachine boundaries largely transparent. In this environment of many cooperating processes on different machines, there are many logical groups of processes. Examples include the group of tile servers, a group of processes executing a particular job, and a group of processes executing a distributed parallel computation. In this paper we describe the extension of the V kernel to support process groups. Operations on groups include group interprocess communication, which provides an application-level abstraction of network multicast. Aspects of the implementation and performance, and initial experience with applications are discussed.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.4 OPERATING SYSTEMS

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

  D. Software
  D.4 OPERATING SYSTEMS

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Measurement, Performance