Design and implementation of a high-performance CCA event service

Abstract

Event services based on publish–subscribe architectures are well-established components of distributed computing applications. Recently, an event service has been proposed as part of the common component architecture (CCA) for high-performance computing (HPC) applications. In this paper we describe our implementation, experimental evaluation, and initial experience with a high-performance CCA event service that exploits efficient communications mechanisms commonly used on HPC platforms. We describe the CCA event service model and briefly discuss the possible implementation strategies of the model. We then present the design and implementation of the event service using the aggregate remote memory copy interface as an underlying communication layer for this mechanism. Two alternative implementations are presented and evaluated on a Cray XD-1 platform. The performance results demonstrate that event delivery latencies are low and that the event service is able to achieve high-throughput levels. Finally, we describe the use of the event service in an application for high-speed processing of data from a mass spectrometer and conclude by discussing some possible extensions to the event service for other HPC applications. Published in 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.