Various embodiments of the present invention provide distributed computing
systems featuring an operating-system-transparent distributed memory
that, among other things, facilitates shared-message-based inter-thread
communication between intercommunicating threads executing concurrently
on a single-processor computer system, concurrently and simultaneously on
a multi-processor computer system, and concurrently and simultaneously on
multiple, discrete computer systems. Certain embodiments of the present
invention are implemented using a secure-platform architecture in which
secure-platform code running on processors within a distributed computing
system provide a virtual, or logical, computing platform on which
operating systems and higher-level software can be layered. A distributed
memory system is provided by the secure-platform layer, using an
extension of the memory-management hardware, firmware, and software
systems originally developed to support virtual memory in
single-processor and multi-processor computer systems. In essence,
logical processors, logical caches, logical memory, and logical
mass-storage-device-implemented backing store are mapped onto the
individual processors, caches, memories, and interconnected mass-storage
systems of a number of discrete computer systems interconnected by
high-speed networking.