Simulation Based Performance Analysis of Ethernet MPI Cluster

Abstract

This paper shows the influence of network aspects and MPI implementation on the performance of an Ethernet based computer cluster. Following factors are considered: message size, number of nodes, node heterogeneity, network speed,switching technology and MPI implementation. The basic index of performance is throughput measured with Intel MPI Benchmark.This paper shows that there is a specific message size that is optimal for each cluster configuration. Most important factor is the network speed, the second is MPI implementation. One can also find that using a faster master node can give a speed bonus.