A user-level multicast performance comparison of scalable coherent interface and Myrinet interconnects

This paper compares and evaluates the multicast performance of two of the most widely deployed system-area networks (SANs), Dolphin´s scalable coherent interface (SCI) and Myricom´s Myrinet. Both networks deliver low latency and high bandwidth to applications, but do not support multicast in hardware. We compared SCI and Myrinet in terms of their user-level performance using various software-based multicast algorithms under various networking and multicasting scenarios. The strengths and weaknesses of each network are comparatively presented in terms of numerous metrics, such as multicast completion latency, CPU utilization, link concentration and concurrency.