Graph Partitioning Algorithms for Distributing Workloads of Parallel Computations

Abstract

This paper surveys graph partitioning algorithms used for parallel computing, with an emphasis on the problem of distributing workloads for parallel computations. Geometric, structural, and refinementbased algorithms are described and contrasted. In addition, multilevel partitioning techniques and issues related to parallel partitioning are addressed. All algorithms are evaluated qualitatively in terms of their execution speed and ability to generate partitions with small separators. 1 Introduction In its most general form, the graph partitioning problem asks how best to divide a graph's vertices into a specified number of subsets such that: (i) the number of vertices per subset is equal and (ii) the number of edges straddling the subsets is minimized. Graph partitioning has several important applications in Computer Science, including VLSI circuit layout [8], image processing [43], solving sparse linear systems, computing fill-reducing orderings for sparse matrices, and distribu...