Self-stabilizing wormhole routing in hypercubes

Wormhole routing is an efficient technique used to communicate message packets between processors when they are not completely connected. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt at designing a self-stabilizing wormhole routing algorithm for hypercubes. Our first algorithm handles all types of faults except for node/link failures. This algorithm achieves optimality in terms of routing path length by following only the preferred dimensions. In an n-dimensional hypercube, those dimensions in which source and destination address bits differ are called preferred dimensions. Our second algorithm handles topological changes. We propose an efficient scheme of rerouting flits in case of node/link failures. Similar to the first algorithm, this algorithm also tries to follow preferred dimensions if they are nonfaulty at the time of transmitting the flits. However, due to topological faults it is necessary to take non-preferred dimensions resulting in suboptimality of path selection. Formal proof of correctness for both solutions is given. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

The Effect Of Hot Spots On The Performance Of Mesh--Based Networks

Direct network performance is affected by different design parameters which include number of virtual channels, number of ports, routing algorithm, switching technique, deadlock handling technique, packet size, and buffer size. Another factor that affects network performance is the traffic pattern. In this thesis, we study the effect of hotspot traffic on system performance. Specifically, we study the effect of hotspot factor, hotspot number, and hot spot location on the performance of mesh-based networks. Simulations are run on two network topologies, both the mesh and torus. We pay more attention to meshes because they are widely used in commercial machines. Comparisons between oblivious wormhole switching and chaotic packet switching are reported. Overall packet switching proved to be more efficient in terms of throughput when compared to wormhole switching. In the case of uniform random traffic, it is shown that the differences between chaotic and oblivious routing are indistinguishable. Networks with low number of hotspots show better performance. As the number of hotspots increases network latency tends to increase. It is shown that when the hotspot factor increases, performance of packet switching is better than that of wormhole switching. It is also shown that the location of hotspots affects network performance particularly with the oblivious routers since their achieved latencies proved to be more vulnerable to changes in the hotspot location. It is also shown that the smaller the size of the network the earlier network saturation occurs. Further, it is shown that the chaos router’s adaptivity is useful in this case. Finally, for tori, performance is not greatly affected by hotspot presence. This is mostly due to the symmetric nature of tori

I/O embedding and broadcasting in star interconnection networks

The issues of communication between a host or central controller and processors, in large interconnection networks are very important and have been studied in the past by several researchers. There is a plethora of problems that arise when processors are asked to exchange information on parallel computers on which processors are interconnected according to a specific topology. In robust networks, it is desirable at times to send (receive) data/control information to (from) all the processors in minimal time. This type of communication is commonly referred to as broadcasting. To speed up broadcasting in a given network without modifying its topology, certain processors called stations can be specified to act as relay agents. In this thesis, broadcasting issues in a star-based interconnection network are studied. The model adopted assumes all-port communication and wormhole switching mechanism. Initially, the problem treated is one of finding the minimum number of stations required to cover all the nodes in the star graph with i-adjacency. We consider 1-, 2-, and 3-adjacencies and determine the upper bound on the number of stations required to cover the nodes for each case. After deriving the number of stations, two algorithms are designed to broadcast the messages first from the host to stations, and then from stations to remaining nodes; In addition, a Binary-based Algorithm is designed to allow routing in the network by directly working on the binary labels assigned to the star graph. No look-up table is consulted during routing and minimum number of bits are used to represent a node label. At the end, the thesis sheds light on another algorithm for routing using parallel paths in the star network

General broadcasting algorithms in one-port wormhole routed hypercubes

Wormhole routing has been accepted as an efficient switching mechanism in point-to-point interconnection networks. Here the network resource, i.e. node buffers and communication channels, are effectively utilized to deliver message across the network; We consider the problem of broadcasting a message in the hypercue equipped with the wormhole switching mechanism. The model is a generalization of an earlier work and considers a broadcast path-length of {dollar}m\ (1\leq m\leq n{dollar}) in the n-cube with a single-port communication capability. In this thesis, the scheme of e-cube and a Gray code path routing and intermediate reception capability have been adopted in order to solve the problem of broadcasting in one-port wormhole routed hypercubes. Two methods have been suggested; one is based on utilizing the Gray codes (Gray code path-based routing), while the other is based on the recursive partitioning of the cube (cube-based routing). The number of routing steps in both methods are compared to those in the previous results, as well as to the lower bounds derived based on the path-length m assumption. A cube-based and a path-based algorithm give {dollar}T(R)+(k\sb{c}+1)T(m){dollar} and {dollar}k\sb{G} +T(m){dollar} routing steps, respectively. By comparison with routing steps of both algorithms, the performance of the path-based algorithm shows better than that of the cube-based; The results of this work are significant and can be used for immediate implementation in contemporary machines most of which are equipped with wormhole routing and serial communication capability