Performance evaluation of switch-based wormhole networks

Multistage interconnection networks (MINs) are a popular class of switch-based network architectures for constructing scalable parallel computers. Four wormhole MINs built from k x k switches, where k = 2(j) for some j, are considered in this paper: traditional MINs (TMINs), dilated MINs (DMINs), MINs with virtual channels (VMINs), and bidirectional MINs (BMINs). The first three MINs are unidirectional networks, and we show that the cube interconnection pattern can provide contention-free and channel-balanced partitioning of binary cube clusters. BMINs based on butterfly interconnection are essentially a fat tree, and their routing properties are described. Performance comparison among these four networks using simulation experiments is presented with respect to different network traffic patterns. Both DMINs (dilation two) and BMINs have a similar hardware complexity. We conclude that a two-dilated MIN outperforms the corresponding BMIN (or fat tree) for most of the traffic conditions and is a better choice for the design of scalable parallel computers.