ATOLL - A Next Generation System Area Network

摘要

ATOLL(Atomic Low Latency) is the synonym for a new cluster technology centered around around an ASIC chip design integration all logic parts of a complete System Area Net-work. Besides its unique architecture ATOLL extends the hardware support for data transfer over the network to a limit, thus reducing communication latencies and enhanc-ing concurency. This paper presents the chip's key functionality - the mechanisms for the send - and receive-operations - in de-tail, but also illuminates some of the features newly invented with ATOLL. The latter cover such different items as an advanced interface for direct support of user-level commu-nication, special locking modes allowing atomic access or techniques to clear network blocking - all intended to over-come the drawbacks of current SAN implementaions.