Issues in designing and implementing a scalable virtual interface architecture

The Virtual Interface Architecture brings the benefits of low latency User-level Networking to a cluster environment. With an increasing number of communication channels created and used, the performance degradation of existing channels becomes an important consideration. This paper addresses the crucial issue of VIA scalability by examining the hardware and software options at the network interface and the host. Different design alternatives are investigated indepth using a detailed simulation model to get revealing insights from the scalability perspective