The Impact of Wiring Constraints on Hierarchical Network Performance

A unified approach, incorporating architectural and packaging issues, is necessary in the design of high performance computer networks. Clustering enables us to exploit the physical hierarchy imposed by packaging. In [HsYe91], we examined the clustering of hypercube networks within the context of wiring constraints. Here, we extend our earlier work to compare the performance of hypercubes and meshes. We consider two cost constraints, bisection width and package pinout, and examine flat and clustered meshes and hypercubes. We find that the relative performance of networks depends on the chosen wiring constraint, as well as system configuration and message granularity.