Software support for asynchronous computing across networks

The paper describes the design and implementation of asynchronous communication library routines for distributed computing across networks of workstations. The new system is based on modifications of the existing PVM message-passing environment. An intensive and comparative study of synchronous, asynchronous and non-blocking communication protocols is addressed in terms of their design, implementation and applications. Experimental performance comparisons of an application program using the three communication protocols on a network of workstations, are also presented. The experimental results show the power of the asynchronous communication library and the effective enhancements of the PVM message-passing environment