Cache Only COMA Machines
Cache Only Machines “only” have cache and are typified by the Kendall Square KSR-1,2 machines. Although this company is no longer in business, the basic architecture is interesting and could still be used in future important machines
In this class of machine one has a NUMA architecture with memory attached to a given processor being lower access cost
In simplest COMA architectures, think of this memory as the cache and when needed migrate data to this cache
However in conventional machines, all data has a natural “original home”; in (simple) COMA, the home of the data moves when it is accessed and one hopes that data is “attracted” through access to “correct” processor