Beyond Fat--tree: Unidirectional Load--Balanced Multistage Interconnection Network

The fat-tree is one of the most widely-used topologies by interconnection network manufacturers. Recently, it has been demonstrated that a deterministic routing algorithm that optimally balances the network traffic can not only achieve almost the same performance than an adaptive routing algorithm b...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE computer architecture letters 2008-07, Vol.7 (2), p.49-52
Main Authors: Gomez, C., Gilabert, F., Gomez, M.E., Lopez, P., Duato, J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Butterfly Network
Computer networks
Cost-efficiency
Costs
Deterministic Routing
Energy consumption
Fat-trees
Hardware
Manufacturing
Multiprocessor interconnection networks
Multistage Interconnection Networks
Network Architecture and Design
Network topology
Networks
Routing
Routing (telecommunications)
Studies
Switches
Switching theory
Telecommunication traffic
Traffic Balancing
Traffic engineering
Traffic flow
Trees
Wiring
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Summary:The fat-tree is one of the most widely-used topologies by interconnection network manufacturers. Recently, it has been demonstrated that a deterministic routing algorithm that optimally balances the network traffic can not only achieve almost the same performance than an adaptive routing algorithm but also outperforms it. On the other hand, fat-trees require a high number of switches with a non-negligible wiring complexity. In this paper, we propose replacing the fat-tree by a unidirectional multistage interconnection network (UMIN) that uses a traffic balancing deterministic routing algorithm. As a consequence, switch hardware is almost reduced to the half, decreasing, in this way, the power consumption, the arbitration complexity, the switch size itself, and the network cost. Preliminary evaluation results show that the UMIN with the load balancing scheme obtains lower latency than fat-tree for low and medium traffic loads. Furthermore, in networks with a high number of stages or with high radix switches, it obtains the same, or even higher, throughput than fat-tree.
ISSN:1556-6056
1556-6064
DOI:10.1109/L-CA.2008.8