FG Verteilte Systeme und Betriebssysteme
On many-core processors, both operating system kernels and bare metal applications need efficient cross-core coordination and communication. Although explicit shared- memory programming and message passing might provide the best performance, they also limit the system’s control over scheduling. In contrast, interrupt-driven cross-core invocations provide universal coordination mechanisms that also enable preemptive operations across cores. This paper surveys cross- core invocation mechanisms and their usability with respect to prevalent coordination scenarios. We integrated some of these mechanisms into a bare-metal environment for the Intel SCC pro- cessor and will discuss implementation aspects of the interrupt- driven invocations. In conclusion, such invocation mechanisms provide an expressive platform for future operating systems kernels and bare-metal applications.