Cluster:STP

What we know

• STP is a protocol that improves network latency by preallocating buffer space on the receiving end. With zero-copy buffers, the CPU load even in high-bandwidth transfers is minimal.
• STP supports implementation in hardware at the NIC level to improve performance. SGI claims that without this, performance is little better than plain TCP/IP.
• STP uses regular AF_INET sockets, using the IP_PROTOSTP flag.
• Example code

What we need to know

• Test SGI's claim as to whether the software implementation of STP isn't better than TCP.
• Figure out whether any of our NICs can support STP in hardware. Alteon Tigon NICs already have a driver in the patch.
• Test out simple data transfer with STP sockets.
• Port 2.4 patch forward to 2.6.
• Add support for STP to LAM-MPI.