Evaluating

Static Interconnection Networks

• Diameter: The distance between the farthest two nodes in the
network. The diameter of a linear array is p − 1, that of a mesh is 2(
− 1), that of a tree and hypercube is log p, and that of a completely
connected network is O(1).
• Bisection Width: The minimum number of wires you must cut to
divide the network into two equal parts. The bisection width of a
linear array and tree is 1, that of a mesh is , that of a hypercube is
p/2 and that of a completely connected network is p2/4.
• Cost: The number of links or switches (whichever is asymptotically
higher) is a meaningful measure of the cost. However, a number of
other factors, such as the ability to layout the network, the length of
wires, etc., also factor in to the cost.
Evaluating
Static Interconnection Networks
Bisection Arc Cost
Network Diameter
Width Connectivity (No. of links)

Completely-connected

Star

Complete binary tree

Linear array

2-D mesh, no wraparound

2-D wraparound mesh

Hypercube

Wraparound k-ary d-cube

Evaluating Dynamic Interconnection Networks

Bisection Arc Cost

Network Diameter
Width Connectivity (No. of links)

Crossbar

Omega Network

Dynamic Tree
Cache Coherence
in Multiprocessor Systems
• Interconnects provide basic mechanisms for data transfer.
• In the case of shared address space machines, additional hardware is
required to coordinate access to data that might have multiple copies
in the network.
• The underlying technique must provide some guarantees on the
semantics.
• This guarantee is generally one of serializability, i.e., there exists some
serial order of instruction execution that corresponds to the parallel
schedule.
Cache Coherence
in Multiprocessor Systems
When the value of a variable is changes, all its
copies must either be invalidated or updated.

Cache coherence in multiprocessor systems: (a) Invalidate protocol; (b)

Update protocol for shared variables.
Cache Coherence:
Update and Invalidate Protocols
• If a processor just reads a value once and does not need it again, an
update protocol may generate significant overhead.
• If two processors make interleaved test and updates to a variable, an
update protocol is better.
• Both protocols suffer from false sharing overheads (two words that
are not shared, however, they lie on the same cache line).
• Most current machines use invalidate protocols.
Maintaining Coherence
Using Invalidate Protocols
• Each copy of a data item is associated with a state.
• One example of such a set of states is, shared, invalid, or dirty.
• In shared state, there are multiple valid copies of the data item (and
therefore, an invalidate would have to be generated on an update).
• In dirty state, only one copy exists and therefore, no invalidates need
to be generated.
• In invalid state, the data copy is invalid, therefore, a read generates a
data request (and associated state changes).
Maintaining Coherence
Using Invalidate Protocols

State diagram of a simple three-state coherence protocol.

Maintaining Coherence
Using Invalidate Protocols

Example of parallel program execution with the simple

three-state coherence protocol.
Snoopy Cache Systems
How are invalidates sent to the right processors?

In snoopy caches, there is a broadcast media that

listens to all invalidates and read requests and performs
appropriate coherence operations locally.

A simple snoopy bus based cache coherence system.

Performance of Snoopy Caches
• Once copies of data are tagged dirty, all subsequent operations can be
performed locally on the cache without generating external traffic.
• If a data item is read by a number of processors, it transitions to the
shared state in the cache and all subsequent read operations become
local.
• If processors read and update data at the same time, they generate
coherence requests on the bus - which is ultimately bandwidth
limited.
Directory Based Systems
• In snoopy caches, each coherence operation is sent to all processors.
This is an inherent limitation.
• Why not send coherence requests to only those processors that need
to be notified?
• This is done using a directory, which maintains a presence vector for
each data item (cache line) along with its global state.
Directory Based Systems

Architecture of typical directory based systems: (a) a centralized

directory; and (b) a distributed directory.
Performance of
Directory Based Schemes
• The need for a broadcast media is replaced by the directory.
• The additional bits to store the directory may add significant
overhead.
• The underlying network must be able to carry all the coherence
requests.
• The directory is a point of contention, therefore, distributed directory
schemes must be used.
Communication Costs
in Parallel Machines
• Along with idling and contention, communication is a major overhead
in parallel programs.
• The cost of communication is dependent on a variety of features
including the programming model semantics, the network topology,
data handling and routing, and associated software protocols.
Message Passing Costs in
Parallel Computers
• The total time to transfer a message over a network comprises of the
following:
• Startup time (ts): Time spent at sending and receiving nodes (executing the
routing algorithm, programming routers, etc.).
• Per-hop time (th): This time is a function of number of hops and includes
factors such as switch latencies, network delays, etc.
• Per-word transfer time (tw): This time includes all overheads that are
determined by the length of the message. This includes bandwidth of links,
error checking and correction, etc.
Store-and-Forward Routing
• A message traversing multiple hops is completely
received at an intermediate hop before being
forwarded to the next hop.
• The total communication cost for a message of size
m words to traverse l communication links is

• In most platforms, th is small and the above

expression can be approximated by
Routing Techniques

Passing a message from node P0 to P3 (a) through a store-and-

forward communication network; (b) and (c) extending the concept
to cut-through routing. The shaded regions represent the time that
the message is in transit. The startup time associated with this
message transfer is assumed to be zero.
Packet Routing
• Store-and-forward makes poor use of communication
resources.
• Packet routing breaks messages into packets and pipelines
them through the network.
• Since packets may take different paths, each packet must
carry routing information, error checking, sequencing, and
other related header information.
• The total communication time for packet routing is
approximated by:

• The factor tw accounts for overheads in packet headers.

Cut-Through Routing
• Takes the concept of packet routing to an extreme by further dividing
messages into basic units called flits.
• Since flits are typically small, the header information must be
minimized.
• This is done by forcing all flits to take the same path, in sequence.
• A tracer message first programs all intermediate routers. All flits then
take the same route.
• Error checks are performed on the entire message, as opposed to flits.
• No sequence numbers are needed.
Cut-Through Routing
• The total communication time for cut-through
routing is approximated by:

• This is identical to packet routing, however, tw is

typically much smaller.
Simplified Cost Model for
Communicating Messages
• The cost of communicating a message between two
nodes l hops away using cut-through routing is given by

• In this expression, th is typically smaller than ts and tw.

For this reason, the second term in the RHS does not
show, particularly, when m is large.
• Furthermore, it is often not possible to control routing
and placement of tasks.
• For these reasons, we can approximate the cost of
message transfer by
Simplified Cost Model for Communicating
Messages
• It is important to note that the original expression for communication
time is valid for only uncongested networks.
• If a link takes multiple messages, the corresponding tw term must be
scaled up by the number of messages.
• Different communication patterns congest different networks to
varying extents.
• It is important to understand and account for this in the
communication time accordingly.
Cost Models for
Shared Address Space Machines
• While the basic messaging cost applies to these machines as well, a number
of other factors make accurate cost modeling more difficult.
• Memory layout is typically determined by the system.
• Finite cache sizes can result in cache thrashing.
• Overheads associated with invalidate and update operations are difficult to
quantify.
• Spatial locality is difficult to model.
• Prefetching can play a role in reducing the overhead associated with data
access.
• False sharing and contention are difficult to model.
Routing Mechanisms
for Interconnection Networks
• How does one compute the route that a message takes from source
to destination?
• Routing must prevent deadlocks - for this reason, we use dimension-ordered
or e-cube routing.
• Routing must avoid hot-spots - for this reason, two-step routing is often used.
In this case, a message from source s to destination d is first sent to a
randomly chosen intermediate processor i and then forwarded to destination
d.
Routing Mechanisms
for Interconnection Networks

Routing a message from node Ps (010) to node Pd (111) in a three-

dimensional hypercube using E-cube routing.
Mapping Techniques for Graphs
• Often, we need to embed a known communication pattern into a
given interconnection topology.
• We may have an algorithm designed for one network, which we are
porting to another topology.

For these reasons, it is useful to understand mapping between graphs.

Mapping Techniques for Graphs: Metrics
• When mapping a graph G(V,E) into G’(V’,E’), the following metrics are
important:
• The maximum number of edges mapped onto any edge in E’ is called
the congestion of the mapping.
• The maximum number of links in E’ that any edge in E is
• mapped onto is called the dilation of the mapping.
• The ratio of the number of nodes in the set V’ to that in set V is called
the expansion of the mapping.
Embedding a Linear Array
into a Hypercube
• A linear array (or a ring) composed of 2d nodes (labeled 0 through 2d −
1) can be embedded into a d-dimensional hypercube by mapping
node i of the linear array onto node
• G(i, d) of the hypercube. The function G(i, x) is defined as follows:

0
Embedding a Linear Array
into a Hypercube
The function G is called the binary reflected Gray code (RGC).

Since adjoining entries (G(i, d) and G(i + 1, d)) differ from each
other at only one bit position, corresponding processors are mapped
to neighbors in a hypercube. Therefore, the congestion, dilation, and
expansion of the mapping are all 1.
Embedding a Linear Array
into a Hypercube: Example

(a) A three-bit reflected Gray code ring; and (b) its embedding into
a three-dimensional hypercube.
Embedding a Mesh
into a Hypercube
• A 2r × 2s wraparound mesh can be mapped to a 2r+s-node hypercube
by mapping node (i, j) of the mesh onto node G(i, r− 1) || G(j, s − 1) of
the hypercube (where || denotes concatenation of the two Gray
codes).
Embedding a Mesh into a Hypercube

(a) A 4 × 4 mesh illustrating the mapping of mesh nodes to the nodes

in a four-dimensional hypercube; and (b) a 2 × 4 mesh embedded into
a three-dimensional hypercube.

Once again, the congestion, dilation, and expansion of

the mapping is 1.
Embedding a Mesh into a Linear Array
• Since a mesh has more edges than a linear array, we will not have an
optimal congestion/dilation mapping.
• We first examine the mapping of a linear array into a mesh and then
invert this mapping.
• This gives us an optimal mapping (in terms of congestion).
Embedding a Mesh into a Linear Array:
Example

(a) Embedding a 16 node linear array into a 2-D mesh; and (b) the
inverse of the mapping. Solid lines correspond to links in the linear
array and normal lines to links in the mesh.
Embedding a Hypercube into a 2-D Mesh
• Each node subcube of the hypercube is mapped
to a node row of the mesh.
• This is done by inverting the linear-array to
hypercube mapping.
• This can be shown to be an optimal mapping.
Embedding a Hypercube into a 2-D Mesh:
Example

Embedding a hypercube into a 2-D mesh.

Case Studies:
The IBM Blue-Gene Architecture

The hierarchical architecture of Blue Gene.

Case Studies:
The Cray T3E Architecture

Interconnection network of the Cray T3E:

(a) node architecture; (b) network topology.
Case Studies:
The SGI Origin 3000 Architecture

Architecture of the SGI Origin 3000 family of servers.

Case Studies:
The Sun HPC Server Architecture

Architecture of the Sun Enterprise family of servers.