Off-campus UNL users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your NU ID and password. When you are done browsing please remember to return to this page and log out.
Non-UNL users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
Design and analysis of a communication middleware for multiple network interfaces
Abstract
Effectively utilizing multiple network interfaces and networks can enhance end-to-end communication performance in local area networks (LAN), system area networks (SAN), and wide-area-networks (WAN). Multiple homogeneous or heterogeneous network interfaces connected to single or multiple homogeneous or heterogeneous networks may exist within and/or among some homogenous or heterogeneous systems. However, current network protocols and services cannot seamlessly and effectively utilize the existing multiple network interfaces. In this dissertation, two communication middleware models that seamlessly and efficiently utilize multiple network interfaces are designed and analyzed. The first model is Multiple-Network-Interface Socket (MuniSocket). MuniSocket provides parallel data transfer over multiple network interfaces. The second model is Multiple-Network-Interface Socket for Clusters (MuniCluster). MuniCluster provides configurable, flexible, and expandable communication infrastructure specifically for cluster networks. These models are configurable to deal with a variety of interconnection structural and traffic scenarios. In addition, they transparently provide an expandable high-bandwidth solution that reduces message transfer time and facilitate dynamic load balancing among the underlying multiple networks. The middleware approach of utilizing multiple network interfaces has the unique advantages of providing flexibility in handling application demands and being independent of the hardware and protocols used in the lower layers. In addition, it is highly portable thus it facilitates handling heterogeneous systems, platforms, networks, and network interfaces. The main contributions of this research are: (1) the design of a configurable communication middleware for utilizing multiple network interfaces to enhance end-to-end communication performance, MuniSocket; (2) the development of reliable parallel transfer mechanisms on top of the reliable and unreliable transport services; (3) the study of the scalability problems in bulk data transfer in wide area networks for Grid applications and a demonstration on how the middleware model can solve most of these problems; (4) the development of different optimization techniques for multiple network interface communication configurations; and (5) the optimization of the proposed model for cluster environments, MuniCluster.
Subject Area
Computer science
Recommended Citation
Mohamed, Nader, "Design and analysis of a communication middleware for multiple network interfaces" (2004). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI3147147.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI3147147