Switcherland: A Scalable Interconnection Structure for Distributed Systems

Hans Eberle
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Institute of Computer Systems 
CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland

Abstract

Switcherland is a scalable interconnection structure for distributed systems. 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 interconnection structure of a 
cluster of workstations.

Switcherland realizes a distributed shared memory, that is, local communication 
within a workstation as well as remote communication within a cluster of 
workstations translate to load and store operations. Further, Switcherland 
offers quality of service (QoS) in that memory is accessed at guaranteed rates 
and in bounded time. 

The "natural" programming model offered by the distributed shared memory and the 
real-time support provided in the form of QoS make Switcherland an ideal 
platform for distributed multimedia applications.

Keywords

interconnection structure, distributed shared memory, quality of service, 
cluster computing.