[Spread-users] Announcing Spread version 4.4.0!

John Lane Schultz jschultz at spreadconcepts.com
Wed May 28 22:52:41 EDT 2014


Spread 4.4.0 http://www.spread.org

Spread Concepts LLC is happy to announce the release of a 
new version, 4.4.0, of The Spread Toolkit. 

The Spread 4.4 version is an important release that incorporates a new,
accelerated ring protocol.  This protocol is tailored for data center networks 
and can provide 30%-50% higher throughput and 20-35% lower latency in modern 
local area networks.  This version also supports Spread's regular ring protocol.

The main new features of this release are:

1) Accelerated ring protocol to improve both throughput and latency in local area networks.

2) Redesigned message-packing, reducing overhead for small messages.

3) Updated MSVS project files for Windows source builds.

4) Several important bugfixes that make Spread more stable, especially under high loss.

5) Expanded and improved logging.

6) Binary executable releases for 64b OSX (10.6+) and Windows 8.

For details check the Readme.txt file. 

This release does not include any API changes, so applications should be able to be
relinked or recompiled with the new Spread library without changes. 

A new AcceleratedRing parameter has been added to Spread's configuration file.
If this parameter is set to true, then the accelerated ring protocol will be used.  
If it is set to false, then the regular ring protocol will be used.  If it is left 
unspecified (the default), then Spread will try to determine which protocol is likely better 
for your environment.  If your configuration looks like it might be a LAN (i.e. - all 
daemon IPs are in the same /16 network) rather than a WAN, then Spread will use 
the accelerated protocol.  Otherwise, it will use the regular protocol.  All the daemons 
in a configuration must use the same ring protocol.  Daemons with different protocols 
will refuse to communicate with one another.

A new AcceleratedWindow parameter (default 15), with a value between 0 and the 
value of the PersonalWindow parameter (default 20), can be specified as a flow 
control parameter in the spread.conf file.  When the accelerated protocol is used,
the higher the AcceleratedWindow parameter the more acceleration can be expected, 
up to a point.  In our testing on an 8 daemon ring on 1Gb/s and 10Gb/s networks, we 
achieved peak performance with both AcceleratedWindow and PersonalWindow 
values of 20.  The accelerated protocol achieves peak performance with smaller values 
of PersonalWindow than the regular protocol.  The sample.spread.conf file included in 
this release has example settings for these parameters that enable the Accelerated 
ring protocol, as well as a description of their functions.

The Spread toolkit provides a high performance messaging service that is resilient 
to faults across local and wide area networks. Spread functions as a unified message bus 
for distributed applications, and provides highly tuned application-level multicast, group 
communication, and point to point support. Spread services range from reliable messaging 
to fully ordered messages with virtual synchrony delivery guarantees, even in case 
of computer failures and network partitions.

Cheers!

-----
John Lane Schultz
Spread Concepts LLC
Cell: 443 838 2200




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