Spread 4.4.0 Released

May 28, 2014

Spread Concepts LLC is happy to announce the release of a new version, 4.4.0, of The Spread Toolkit. It can be downloded here.

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+) can be downloded here and Binary for Windows 8 can be downloded here.

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.