Abstract

A method and process for operating an interprocess communication mechanism in a multi processor computer system are described. If a sender node needs sending a message to a receiver node, it accesses the latter for available storage space. If available, the message is transferred and the sender node may resume processing. If nonavailable the transferring is deferred. In either case the message is queued to any message either awaiting processing at the receiver node or awaiting transfer, in that at the instant when such transfer was necessary, no storage space had been available. If the receiver node wants to process a message, it accesses the least recent item of the message queue and unlinks it, while belated transferring is now executed, if necessary.Thereupon the original sender node was still kept waiting, it is now allowed to resume processing. Generally only two communication operations are required per message. Only in case of inavailability of storage space, the message in question needs four communication operations.

Other References

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• den Haan et al., "Efficient Message Passing in Parallel Systems with Limited Memory", CONPAR 88 (Manchester UK) pp. 42-4