Self-configuring communication middleware model for clusters with multiple interconnections

Communication middleware such as MuniCluster provides high-level communication mechanisms for networked applications by hiding the low-level communication details from the applications. The MuniCluster model provides mechanisms to enhance the network performance properties through message separation and parallel transfer. However, the configurations of such services require various measurements and setups to efficiently utilize the availability of multiple network interfaces. In this paper we introduce and evaluate a self-configuring model that allows applications to transparently utilize the existence of multiple network interfaces and networks. Here we present enhancements to the MuniCluster model by adding the self-configuration mechanism. Using network resource discovery and deciding on how to efficiently utilize the multiple networks, the model enhances overall communications performance. The proposed techniques deal with the heterogeneity of interfaces and networks to enhance the communication performance transparent form the applications. The proposed techniques also deal with heterogeneity in the interfaces and networks in their numbers, latencies, and bandwidths.