Linux Kernel,
The RPM versions of the Dolphin PCI-SCI (Scalable Coherent Interface)
adapter drivers have posted at vger.timpanogas.org/sci. This release
supports the following SCI Adapters, PSB32, PSB64, and PSB66. This
version supports the 32-bit and 64-bit PCI versions of the Dolphin
PCI-SCI Adapters. This RPM version supports i386, Alpha, Sparc, and
Sparc64 architecture systems.
SCI is a high performance clustering interconnect fabric that allows
a Linux system to perform push/pull DMA transfers of mapped regions
of memory (such as a distributed cache) between nodes either via
DMA or via remotely mapping R/W memory access to pages of memory
in another cluster node. This version of the adapters supports
a scalable fabric on bi-CMOS chipsets that operates with a
maximum data transfer rate of 500 Megabytes/second. Obviously,
PCI bandwidth limits how much throughput you can actually get
on a Live Linux System. On an AMD Ahtalon 550Mhz System, we are
seeing @ 65 Megabytes/second with DMA and @ 45 Megabytes/second
throughput with Memory copying between nodes with this
version of the drivers/adapters.
Linux 2.2 vs. 2.4 performance is telling, with Linux 2.4 clearly
providing significantly higher performance for NUMA
operations with the Dolphin PCI-SCI adapters. Please review
the attached performance figures below for a comparison.
This release has removed the requirement for the bighysparea patch
for these drivers. This package will allow these drivers to run
on any "shrink-wrapped" Linux versions. We have also packaged these
drivers in both tar.gz and RPM format, and a source RPM is provided
under the GNU Public License which will allow these drivers to be
easily included into any commercial Linux Distributions that use
RPM. We have tested this RPM package on RedHat, Suse, Caldera,
and Ute Linux.
This release has been tested and 2.4 Linux kernel enabled, and fully
supports Linux kernel 2.4. This release corrects several bugs
and level I Oops on Linux 2.4 kernels with previous versions.
Please feel feel to post any bugs or problems with these drivers to
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org or report them to jmerkey@timpanogas.org.
I will be maintaining the RPM release of the Dolphin PCI-SCI drivers,
so please direct and reports to me and I will forward them onto
Dolphin ICS if they are related to hardware bugs. For additional
useful information about SCI, please visit Dolphin's website
at www.dolphinics.com.
The next release of these drivers will contain a fast-path sockets
and TCPIP interface to allow IP routing and support for LVS and
distrbuted NUMA support for the M2FS Clustered File System on the
Dolphin Adapters.
Jeff Merkey
Chief Engineer, TRG
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Jan 31 2001 - 21:00:33 EST