HELP! * YELLOW=global GREY=local Global HTML version of Foils prepared July 6 1996

Foil 17 Classes of Communication Network include ...

From HPCC Current Status: Hardware MPP Trip to China -- July 12-28,96. by Geoffrey Fox * See also color IMAGE
Classes of networks include:
Bus: All processors (and memory) connected to a common bus or busses.
  • Memory access fairly uniform, but not very scalable due to contention
  • Bus machines can be NUMA if memory consists of directly accessed local memory as well as memory banks accessed by BUS. The BUS accessed memories can be local memories on other processors
Switching Network: Processors (and memory) connected to routing switches like in telephone system.
  • Switches might have queues, "combining logic", which improve functionality but increase latency.
  • Switch settings may be determined by message headers or preset by controller.
  • Connections can be packet-switched (messages no longer than some fixed size) or circuit-switched (connection remains as long as needed)
  • Usually NUMA, blocking, often scalable and upgradable
Northeast Parallel Architectures Center, Syracuse University, npac@npac.syr.edu

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