THE RHODOS DSM SYSTEM

The RHODOS Distributed Shared Memory (DSM) system forms an easy to pro gram (using sequential programming skills without a need to learn DSM concepts) and transparent environment, and provides high performance c omputational services. This system also allows programmers to use eith er the sequential or release consistency model for the shared memory. These attributes have been achieved by integrating DSM into the RHODOS distributed operating system rather than putting it on top of an exis ting operating system, as have other researchers. In this paper we rep ort on the development of a DSM system integrated into RHODOS and how it supports programmers; the programming of three applications to demo nstrate ease of programming; and the results of running these three ap plications using the two different consistency protocols. (C) 1998 Pub lished by Elsevier Science B.V.