Portability in the Orca Shared Object System

• Main Authors: Henri E. Bal, Raoul Bhoedjang, Rutger Hofman, Ceriel Jacobs, Koen Langendoen, Tim Rühl, M. Frans Kaashoek
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1997
• Subjects: Orca
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.38.3589

Orca is an object-based distributed shared memory system that is designed for writing portable and efficient parallel programs. Orca hides the communication substrate from the programmer by providing an abstract communication model based on shared objects. The paper describes a new, portable implementation of Orca, using a layered system that consists of a compiler, a runtime system, and a virtual machine (Panda). The Orca system has been implemented on a range of platforms (including Solaris, Amoeba, Parix, and the CM-5). Measurements of several benchmarks and applications across four platforms show that the Orca system achieves portability with good performance. In addition, the measurements show that performance of the system is as good as a previous implementation of Orca that was specialized for Amoeba.