Stripe Attribute

Sun HPC ClusterTools 3.0 software supports scalable communication between cluster nodes through striping of MPI messages over SCI interfaces. In striped communication, a message is split into smaller packets and transmitted in two or more parallel streams over a set of network interfaces that have been logically combined into a stripe-group.

The STRIPE column allows the administrator to include individual SCI network interfaces in a stripe-group pool. Members of this pool are available to be included in logical stripe groups. These stripe groups are formed on an as-needed basis, selecting interfaces from this stripe-group pool.

To include the SCI interface in a stripe-group pool, set its STRIPE value to 1. To exclude an interface from the pool, specify 0. Up to four SCI network interface cards per node can be configured for stripe-group membership.

When a message is submitted for transmission over the SCI network, an MPI protocol module distributes the message over as many SCI network interfaces as are available.

Stripe-group membership is made optional so you can reserve some SCI network bandwidth for non-striped use. To do so, simply set STRIPE = 0 on the SCI network interface(s) you wish to reserve in this way.