In-Kernel Aggregation and Broadcast Acceleration for Distributed Communication

Broadcasting and aggregation dominate the communication overhead in distributed systems, from machine learning training to data analytics. Current acceleration approaches require specialized hardware (RDMA) or dedicated resources (DPDK), limiting their deployment in commodity clouds. However, we present a counter-intuitive alternative: rather than bypassing the kernel, we move operations into it using eBPF. While this imposes severe constraints including no floating-point, limited memory, and stateless execution, we show these restrictions paradoxically drive innovative protocol designs that yield unexpected benefits. We introduce AggBox, which implements broadcast and aggregation operations entirely within…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Award: 2530909