MPI on U-Net

Abstract

A simple protocol is designed and implemented into the ADI layer of the MPICH message passing library to ensure reliability when running on top of unreliable network interfaces such as U-Net. Our protocol for short messages uses a reliable message stream and lazy acknowledgment to realize low latencies and a small protocol overhead. An implementation for two Pentium Pro 200 nodes connected with 100Mb/s Tulip Fast Ethernet shows that latencies of about 32us can be achieved at the ADI layer.