martin@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Bruce Martin) (05/11/87)
[ This uses the Berkeley socket interface with 4.3BSD or the Wollongong TCP ] [ package for System V. It can be easily transported to other IPC types. ] [ And it's very easy to use -- I've seen it work! --DL ] The distributed systems research group here at UCSD has constructed PARPC, a system for parallel remote procedure calls, as the communication architecture for its distributed systems software research. Parallel procedure calls were originally used in the Gemini replicated file system. Parallel procedure calls have proved to be an elegant structured programming construct for expressing many distributed system algorithms. Since synchronous and asynchronous message sends are special cases of parallel procedure calls, any message based computation can be expressed with parallel procedure calls. While the concept of parallel procedure calls is applicable to many languages, the PARPC system allows C and C++ programs to make parallel procedure calls. PARPC consists of run time support for parallel procedure calls, a stub compiler and two simple tools for software development around a network. PARPC bridges heterogeneous architectures and operating systems. We currently have the system installed and running on VAX, SUN, PYRAMID, and AT&T 3B architectures running various flavors of 4.2BSD, 4.3BSD and System V UNIX. Copies of a technical report, a paper on PARPC and the software itself, are available from: Bruce Martin Computer Systems Research Group Department of Computer Science and Engineering M/S C-014 University of California, San Diego La Jolla, California 92093 ARPA: martin@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu UUCP: ..!sdcsvax!martin