The Quadrics Network Extends the Native Operating System in Processing Nodes with a Network Operating System and Specialized Hardware Support in the Network

The interconnection network and its associated software libraries are critical components for high-performance cluster computers and supercomputers, Web-server farms, and network-attached storage. Such components will greatly impact the design, architecture, and use of future systems. Key solutions in high-speed interconnects include Gigabit Ethernet, GigaNet, the Scalable Coherent Interface (SCI), Myrinet, and the Gigabyte System Network (Hippi-6400). These interconnects differ from one another in their architecture, programmability, scalability, performance, and ability to integrate into large-scale systems. While Gigabit Ethernet resides at the low end of the performance spectrum, it provides a low-cost solution. GigaNet, SCI, Myrinet, and the Gigabyte System Network provide programmability and performance by adding communication processors on the network interface cards and implementing different types of user-level communication protocols. The Quadrics network (QsNet) surpasses these interconnects in functionality with an approach that integrates a node’s local virtual memory into a globally shared, virtual-memory space; provides a programmable processor in the network interface that allows the implementation of intelligent communication protocols; and delivers integrated network fault detection and fault tolerance. Consequently, QsNet already possesses many of the salient aspects of InfiniBand, an evolving standard that also gives an integrated approach to highperformance communication.