The performance model of SilkRoad - a multithreaded DSM system for clusters

Distributed Shared Memory (DSM) is a highly desirable programming model for cluster based computing. Even though a number of software DSMs have been developed with their performance evaluated, few of them have a theoretical performance model. In this paper, we propose and analyze the performance model of the software DSM of SilkRoad,, a multithreaded runtime system for cluster computing. SilkRoad is built on the Cilk system with an extended memory consistency model which we call RC_dag consistency: Extending Cilk´s theoretical performance model, we show that with the RC_dag consistent DSM, the expected execution.time T_P of a partially strict multithreaded computation on P processors is O((T₁(Z, L) + N)/P + μHT_∞), where T₁(Z, L) is the total work of computation, T_∞ is the critical path, N is the number of lock acquisitions, μ is the service time of a cache miss, and H is the height of memory: Finally, we present experimental evidence that verify the performance model.