Approach

Approach to SSI: A Run-Time Infrastructure There are three different approaches that enable a Java application to see a cluster as a single computing resource. Three Approaches to Cluster VM for Java First, we could provide an implementation above the JVM in Java; for example, using third-party Java packages. Several others have taken this approach (e.g., Voyager, JavaParty), and in all cases the distributed nature of the implementation is not completely hidden from the program. In other words, the view of a single system image is incomplete. Second, we could build upon a cluster enabled infrastructure below the JVM (e.g., a distributed shared memory), as was done in Java/DSM. Such an approach is capable of presenting a single system image; however, it is inherently incapable of taking advantage of knowledge of the semantics of Java. Finally, we can provide an implementation of a Java Virtual Machine which is aware of the underlying cluster, but which completely hides that fact from the application. We use this approach. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to implement and report on this approach. For a general discussion on how to achieve scalability, see Ways to Achieve Scalability.