Nec Research Institute, Inc.

Other

James F Philbin

Suresh Jagannathan

Kai Yi Li

Satoru Fujita

Kazuya Koyama

Toru Yamanouchi

Richard A Kelsey

Jan Sterling Edler

A distributed software system and method are provided for use with a plurality of potentially heterogeneous computer machines connected as a network. The system may comprise at least one agent comprising a protection domain, wherein the protection domain of the at least one agent resides on at least two of the plurality of computer machines. A plurality of objects is contained within the protection domain of the at least one agent, a first object residing on a first of the at least two computer machines and a second object residing on a second of the at least two computer machines. The objects are selectively movable among the at least two computer machines by a programmer of the system. The first object on the first computer machine may access the second object on the second computer machine in a location-transparent or network-transparent manner; that is, without knowledge of the physical address of the second object on the second computer machine and regardless of the selective movement of either the first object or the second object among the first and second computer machines. The agent is mobile and may migrate, in whole or in part, to any other machine or machines in the network. Each distributed agent may be distributed among one, several or many of the machines of the network. Migration of agents, even during process execution, is straightforward and maintains consistency across the network. Specifically, other agents may continue to access a particular agent after it has migrated without any prior notification to the agents themselves.

Distributed agent software system and method having enhanced process mobility and communication in a computer network

A method for improving the cache locality of an application executing in a computer system by decomposing the application into one or more threads and subsequently scheduling the execution of the threads such that a next thread to be executed is likely to reside in cache. The method operates by identifying a tour of points through a k-dimensional space such that cache misses are minimized. The space is divided into a plurality of equally sized blocks and may be extended for application to multiple cache levels.

Method for improving cache locality of a computer program

A computer software architecture for controlling a highly parallel computer system comprises several layers of abstraction. The first layer is an abstract physical machine which contains a set of abstract physical processors. This layer may be considered as a microkernel. The next layer includes virtual machines and virtual processors. A virtual machine comprises a virtual address space and a set of virtual processors that are connected in a virtual topology. Virtual machines are mapped onto abstract physical machines with each virtual processor mapped onto an abstract physical processor. The third layer of abstraction defines threads. Threads are lightweight processes that run on virtual processors. In a preferred embodiment the abstract physical machines, abstract physical processors, virtual machines, virtual processors, thread groups, and threads are all first class objects.

Software architecture for control of highly parallel computer systems

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Metuchen, NJ, United States of America

James F Philbin