Resource management on a packet-based parallel graph reduction machine

Abstract

This paper is concerned with resource management on Flagship: a packet-based parallel graph reduction machine specifically designed to support the efficient execution of functional languages. Much of the system software of the machine was implemented above the computational model. The major concerns of the system software were the sharing of resources in a way that is compatible with a declarative approach, and to enable the distributed resources of the machine to be used in an efficient manner whilst maintaining consistency of these resources. The paper concentrates on describing how the kernel was structured into a set of resource managers. The resource managers were in turn structured in order to optimise access to distributed resources.