Architectural Design Space

• For a network transaction, architecture defines what and how much of the transaction is interpreted by communication assist HW vs SW

  • tag match (which output buffer, which input buffer)
  • action on remote node (dispatch)

• Simplest MP, assist doesn’t interpret anything

  • DMA from/to host specified buffer
  • interrupt or set flag on completion

• For CC-NUMA, assist interprets everything in hardware

  • complexity increases

• Hybrid SM-MP Machines, assist executes handler

  • user-level vs kernel mode

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