Recursive cubes of rings as models for interconnection networks

We study recursive cubes of rings as models for interconnection networks. We first redefine each of them as a Cayley graph on the semidirect product of an elementary abelian group by a cyclic group in order to facilitate the study of them by using algebraic tools. We give an algorithm for computing shortest paths and the distance between any two vertices in recursive cubes of rings, and obtain the exact value of their diameters. We obtain sharp bounds on the Wiener index, vertex-forwarding index, edge-forwarding index and bisection width of recursive cubes of rings. The cube-connected cycles and cube-of-rings are special recursive cubes of rings, and hence all results obtained in the paper apply to these well-known networks

Properties and Algorithms of the (n,k)-Arrangement Graphs and Augmented Cubes

The (n, k)-arrangement graph was first introduced in 1992 as a generalization of the star graph topology. Choosing an arrangement topology is more efficient in comparison with a star graph as we can have a closer number of nodes to what is needed. Also it has other advantages such as a lower degree and a smaller diameter, depending on k. In this thesis we investigate the problem of finding k(n − k) disjoint paths from a source node to k(n−k) target nodes in an (n, k)-arrangement interconnection network such that no path has length more than diameter+(n−k)+2, where diameter is the maximum length of shortest path between any two nodes in the graph. These disjoint paths are built by routing to all neighbors of the source node and fixing specific elements in each of the k positions of the node representation in an (n, k)-arrangement graph. Moreover, a simple routing is presented for finding n disjoint paths between two nodes which are located in different sub-graphs. The lengths are no more than d(t, s) + 4, for d(t, s) being the shortest path length between two nodes s and t. This routing algorithm needs O(n^2) time to find all n these paths. In addition to arrangement graphs, we also study augmented cubes, first introduced in 2002, a desirable variation of the hypercube. An augmented cube of dimension n has a higher degree and a lower diameter in comparison with the hypercube. We introduce an O(n^3) algorithm for finding disjoint shortest paths from a single source node to 2n − 1 different target nodes

Mixing times of lozenge tiling and card shuffling Markov chains

We show how to combine Fourier analysis with coupling arguments to bound the mixing times of a variety of Markov chains. The mixing time is the number of steps a Markov chain takes to approach its equilibrium distribution. One application is to a class of Markov chains introduced by Luby, Randall, and Sinclair to generate random tilings of regions by lozenges. For an L X L region we bound the mixing time by O(L^4 log L), which improves on the previous bound of O(L^7), and we show the new bound to be essentially tight. In another application we resolve a few questions raised by Diaconis and Saloff-Coste, by lower bounding the mixing time of various card-shuffling Markov chains. Our lower bounds are within a constant factor of their upper bounds. When we use our methods to modify a path-coupling analysis of Bubley and Dyer, we obtain an O(n^3 log n) upper bound on the mixing time of the Karzanov-Khachiyan Markov chain for linear extensions.Comment: 39 pages, 8 figure

Topological Characterization of Hamming and Dragonfly Networks and its Implications on Routing

Current HPC and datacenter networks rely on large-radix routers. Hamming graphs (Cartesian products of complete graphs) and dragonflies (two-level direct networks with nodes organized in groups) are some direct topologies proposed for such networks. The original definition of the dragonfly topology is very loose, with several degrees of freedom such as the inter- and intra-group topology, the specific global connectivity and the number of parallel links between groups (or trunking level). This work provides a comprehensive analysis of the topological properties of the dragonfly network, providing balancing conditions for network dimensioning, as well as introducing and classifying several alternatives for the global connectivity and trunking level. From a topological study of the network, it is noted that a Hamming graph can be seen as a canonical dragonfly topology with a large level of trunking. Based on this observation and by carefully selecting the global connectivity, the Dimension Order Routing (DOR) mechanism safely used in Hamming graphs is adapted to dragonfly networks with trunking. The resulting routing algorithms approximate the performance of minimal, non-minimal and adaptive routings typically used in dragonflies, but without requiring virtual channels to avoid packet deadlock, thus allowing for lower-cost router implementations. This is obtained by selecting properly the link to route between groups, based on a graph coloring of the network routers. Evaluations show that the proposed mechanisms are competitive to traditional solutions when using the same number of virtual channels, and enable for simpler implementations with lower cost. Finally, multilevel dragonflies are discussed, considering how the proposed mechanisms could be adapted to them