A framework for adaptive routing in multicomputer networks
Message-passing concurrent computers, also known as multicomputers, such as the Caltech Cosmic Cube and its commercial descendants, consist of many computing nodes that interact with each other by sending and receiving messages over communication channels between the nodes. The communication networks of the second-generation machines, such as the Symult Series 2010 and the Intel iPSC2, employ an oblivious wormhole-routing technique that guarantees deadlock freedom. The network performance of this highly evolved oblivious technique has reached a limit of being capable of delivering, under random traffic, a stable maximum sustained throughput of {approx}45 to 50% of the limit set by the network bisection bandwidth, while maintaining acceptable network latency. This thesis examines the possibility of performing adaptive routing as an approach to further improving upon the performance and reliability of these networks. In an adaptive multipath routing scheme, message trajectories are no longer deterministic, but are continuously perturbed by local message loading. Message packets will tend to follow their shortest-distance routes to destinations in normal traffic loading, but can be detoured to longer but less-loaded routes as local congestion occurs. Our study of the proposed adaptive routing framework is organized around four major areas of interest: establishing the theoretical feasibility, investigating the performance behavior, exploring the potential reliability enhancement, and examining the major implementation issues.
- Research Organization:
- California Inst. of Tech., Pasadena, CA (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 6089781
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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