R. Finocchiaro, L. Razik, S. Lankes, and T. Bemmerl (Germany)
Ethernet, InfiniBand, SCI, Linux, Sockets, TIPC
High communication performance is a necessity in many areas in order to balance the enormous computational power of modern CPUs. High-speed networks such as SCI or InfiniBand are good solutions to alleviate this problem when the communication software is either based on IP or tailored to the specific interconnect. Software written to communicate via Ethernet frames is left aside, though, as at most an IP interface is offered. In this paper, we present ETHOS, a generic Ethernet over sockets driver for Linux. With this driver, it is possible to leverage high speed networks where software expects an Ethernet inter face, thereby enabling most layer 2 kernel amenities like e.g. interface bonding and bridging. We describe the archi tecture of ETHOS and its surroundings. By means of vari ous measurements, we show that indeed ETHOS in combi nation with SCI or InfiniBand can be used as a replacement for Gigabit Ethernet offering an increase in communication performance by a factor of two to three.
Important Links:
Go Back
