Porting PVM to New Architectures<A NAME=1899> </A>
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PVM has been ported to three distinct classes of architecture:
- Workstations and PCs running some version of Unix
- Distributed-memory multiprocessors like the Intel hypercubes
- Shared-memory multiprocessors like the SGI Challenge
Each of these classes requires a different approach to make PVM
exploit the capabilities of the respective architecture.
The workstations use TCP/IP to move data between hosts,
the distributed-memory multiprocessors use the native
message-passing routines to move data between nodes,
and the shared-memory multiprocessors use shared memory to
move data between the processors.
The following sections describe the steps for porting the
PVM source to each of these classes.
Porting PVM to non-Unix
operating systems can be very difficult.
Nonetheless, groups outside the PVM team have developed PVM ports for
DEC's VMS and IBM's OS/2
operating systems.
Such ports can require extensive rewriting of the source and are not
described here.