Architecture-dependent tuning of the parameterized communication model for optimal multicasting

Abstract

A key issue in designing software multicast algorithms is to consider the trade-off between performance and portability. Portable software multicast algorithms based on generic communication models cannot capture some architecture-specific features. Without considering the underlying network architecture, these multicast algorithms may not achieve the truly optimal performance when implemented in real networks. The objective of this research is to investigate architecture-dependent tuning on performance of multicast algorithms developed based on architecture-independent models. Specifically, we intend to optimize the multicast algorithm based on the parameterized communication model. We propose two multicast algorithms, OPT-mesh and OPT-min which are the optimized versions of the parameterized multicast algorithm for wormhole-switched mesh networks and BMIN networks, respectively. Using our flit-level simulator the performance of both algorithms are compared with the architecture-independent version of the parameterized multicast algorithm and two other well-known network-dependent algorithms based on the binomial tree.