Efficient collective data distribution in all-port wormhole-routed hypercubes

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of collective data distribution, specifically multicasi, in wormhole-rouied hypercubes. The system model allows a processor to send and receive data in all dimensions simultaneously. New theoretical results that characterize contention among messages in wormhole-routed hypercubes are developed and used to design new multicast routing algorithms. The algorithms are compared in terms of the number of steps required in each, their measured execution times when implemented on a relatively small-scale nCUBE-2, and their simulated execution times on larger hypercubes. The results indicate that significant performance improvement is possible when the multicast algorithm actively identifies and uses multiple ports in parallel. Because they do not physically share memory, nodes in MPCS must communicate by passing messages through a communications network. Some communication operations are point-to-point, that is, they involve only a single source and a single destination.