🚀 go-pugleaf

Now that we have been throroughly reminded of some of the differences
between Amoeba and Mach, I have a question regarding the throughput of
the Mach RPC. First a bit of background...

Peterson, et al, published a paper in the May 1990 issue of IEEE
Computer entitled "The x-kernel: A platform for accessing Internet
resources." In that paper, a number of RPC throughput figures were
given for x-kernel, Mach, and several other OSes. (I don't have it
handy right now to give a full list, however.) Tanenbaum, et al,
published a paper in the December 1990 issue of Communications of the
ACM, entitled "Experiences with the Amoeba Distributed operating
System." In that paper, RPC throughput figures were given for Amoeba,
Cedar, x-kernel, V, Topax, Sprite, and Mach. (The figure for Mach was
obtained from Peterson's paper.) The throughput for Mach is between 3
and 10 times slower than that of the other OSes.

My question is simple, though its answer likely is not: Why is the
throughput of the Mach RPC so much slower than the other OSes? Are the
respective RPCs different enough that throughput is a meaningless
"apples and oranges" comparision? Has the Mach RPC simply not been
optimized as heavily as that of the other OSes?

Thanks.




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