Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences

Research in distributed computing at UC Irvine has included the development of ring communication hardware for the Distributed Computer System (DCS). [Mockapetris 78] The Ring Interface (RI), [Loomis 73] has recently been superseded by work on the Local Network Interface (LNI). [Mockapetris 77] The LNI includes implementation of ring communication systems as one of its goals.

The name table subsystem of both interfaces performs the functions necessary to recognize messages addressed to the attached host. These functions are divided into two parts. The first part is the comparison of the destination specification imbedded in the arriving message with the list of destinations stored in the name table. The second part of the NT subsystem allows the attached host to maintain the destination specifications stored in the name table.

The LNI name table design has been influenced heavily by the successes and shortcomings of the RI, and by the demands placed upon the RI by the DCS. We have corrected the deficiencies of the RI, and added new features. The bias has been toward an eventual implementation in LSI. Due to this bias, parts of the design are not optimized to TTL constraints and capabilities.