Performance analysis of hybrid network multiprocessor architecture

In this paper we investigate architectures that combine message-passing and shared-memory technologies, called hereinafter hybrid architectures. We introduced hybrid architectures in which large buses of the shared-memory are split into a number of small high-performance shared-memory blocks, which are connected via message-passing architecture, such as hypercube, grid or ring. This way we avoid the possible degradation of the achieved performance due to the fact that the bus performance does not scale well when the number of processors it connects increases. We study the saturation situations of several hybrid network architectures, where adding processors does not reduce the overall execution time. We show that the use of hybrid network architectures leads to significant improvement of the systems price /performance ratio, by significantly improving the performance with almost no system cost increment. Therefore, the usage of hybrid architectures demonstrates how minimal ‘cost’ spending could significantly increase the system performance. In addition, we show that different types of applications have different best hybrid architectures. Copyright  2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.