[zeromq-dev] Multicore Magic

[Pieter Hintjens]

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 10:09 PM, Martin Sustrik <sustrik at 250bpm.com> wrote:

>> Wouldn't happen like that, rather allocate fixed shmem buffers that
>> are reused for smaller messages.  And use signals to indicate new
>> data... no?
>
> Definitely doable. But that's what OS-provided IPC mechanism does under
> covers. Once you go that way you find yourself competing with kernel
> implementation of the same thing.

Are signals as fast as, or slower than inproc?

> Not that it's not doable. There've been a discussion on the list where
> someone proposed busy-looping when waiting for incoming data, thus
> by-passing the kernel. Still, my feeling is that such measures are a bit
> drastic even for a HPC solution like 0MQ.

Busy-looping makes sense (except for energy consumption) when there's
one core per task, and that's kind of where things are heading...

Might be worth collecting this into a design whitepaper.

-Pieter