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USENIX Windows NT Workshop, 1997
Brazos: A Third Generation DSM System
Evan Speight and John K. Bennett
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Rice University
Houston, TX
Abstract
Brazos is a third generation distributed shared memory (DSM) system designed for x86 machines running Microsoft
Windows NT 4.0. Brazos is unique among existing systems in its use of selective multicast, a software-only
implementation of scope consistency, and several adaptive runtime performance tuning mechanisms. The Brazos
runtime system is multithreaded, allowing the overlap of computation with the long communication latencies
typically associated with software DSM systems. Brazos also supports multithreaded user-code execution, allowing
programs to take advantage of the local tightly-coupled shared memory available on multiprocessor PC servers, while
transparently interacting with remote "virtual" shared memory. Brazos currently runs on a cluster of Compaq Proliant
1500 multiprocessor servers connected by a 100 Mbps FastEthernet. This paper describes the Brazos design and
implementation, and compares its performance running five scientific applications to the performance of Solaris and
Windows NT implementations of the TreadMarks DSM system running on the same hardware.
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