UNIX(R) Systems for Modern Architectures: Symmetric Multiprocessing and Caching for Kernel Programmers (Addison-Wesley Professional Computing Series)

So why only three stars? The problem is that the book is incomplete. Cache systems and virtual-memory systems interact in myriad ways, but you wouldn't know that from reading this book. Similarly, storage and networking subsystems are often the bloodiest battlegrounds with respect to multiprocessor synchronization, and yet special considerations in those areas are not covered. Many old architectures (e.g. Apollo, ELXSI) are mentioned, and yet NUMA never even gets a nod. I know that covering all of these topics in any kind of depth would be impossible in a single book of any reasonable length, but their *total* omission is something I consider unacceptable.

This is a book I would recommend without hesitation to any number of people. Unfortunately, that recommendation would always have to be accompanied by recommendations for other books that pick up where this one inexplicably leaves off.

THE book if you are a kernel/threading developer.
I work on MP SVR4 kernels and this book is where I got most of my basics on MP from. I didn't understand the contents all at once - especially the initial intro to memory models in chapter 8, but after reading the SPARC specs (V8 & V9) and chapter 13, I can see how all this is relevant.

If you are porting a unix or any OS for that matter to todays architectures, this book should help clear up what issues you would encounter and how best to solve them. For example the memory models and consistency guarantees of the source architecture and how they compare to the destination.

And ofcourse its a great aid to understanding any contemporary OS' kernel code.

veliath

Wonderful Book
This book is amazing. I wanted to learn more about synchronization on multiprocessor systems, this book covers that better than any other source I have found.

If you want to understand SMP systems and the programming issues they cause, this is the book.