A comparative performance study of an Interconnection Cached Network
- Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ (United States)
- NEC Research Institute, Inc., Princeton, NJ (United States)
The Holy Grail of multi-computer network architects is an ideal crossbar with large size, high bandwidth and fast switching speed. Currently, only small crossbars with fast switching rates are available. Some technologies, e.g., optics, make it possible to build large, high bandwidth crossbars. However, these crossbars switch slowly. The Interconnection Cached Network (ICN) contains many small crossbars interconnected by a single large crossbar. The large crossbar is used for topology reconfiguration, and the small crossbars for message switching. In many parallel applications, each processing element (PE) communicates with only a small set of other PEs. We call this phenomenon switching locality and show that, in its presence, the ICN performs almost as well as the ideal crossbar. We also show that alternative networks have poorer overall performance in terms of average message latency, highest sustainable throughput, and application scalability.
- OSTI ID:
- 98902
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-940856--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Can high bandwidth and latency justify large cache blocks in scalable multiprocessors?
An intra-node HPC network architecture with nanosecond-scale photonic switches