SWITCHERLAND - A SCALABLE INTERCONNECTION STRUCTURE FOR DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

Switcherland is a scalable interconnection structure for distributed s ystems. It is scalable in that it uses switches that can serve as an I /O interconnection structure of a workstation as well as a network int erconnection structure of a cluster of workstations. Switcherland real izes a distributed shared memory, thai is, local communication within a workstation as well as remote communication within a cluster of work stations translate to load and store operations. Further, Switcherland offers quality of service (QoS) in that memory is accessed at guarant eed rates and in bounded time. The ''natural'' programming model offer ed by the distributed shared memory nd the real-time support provided in the form of QoS make Switcherland an ideal platform for distributed multimedia applications.