Analysis of 100 Mb/s Ethernet for the Whitney commodity computing testbed

Author

Fineberg, Samuel A. ; Pedretti, Kevin T.

Author_Institution

Tandem Labs., Compaq Comput. Corp., Cupertino, CA, USA

fYear

1999

fDate

21-25 Feb 1999

Firstpage

276

Lastpage

283

Abstract

We evaluate the performance of a fast Ethernet network configured with a single switch, a single hub, a combination of hubs and switches, and a 4×4 2D tents topology in a testbed cluster of “commodity ” Pentium Pro PCs. An MPI collective communication benchmark and the NAS Parallel Benchmarks version 2.2 (NPB2) show that the torus network performs best for all sizes that we were able to test (up to 16 nodes). For larger networks the Ethernet switch outperforms the hub, though its performance is far less than peak. The hub/switch combination tests indicate that the NAS parallel benchmarks are relatively insensitive to hub densities of less than 7 nodes per hub

Keywords

local area networks; multiprocessor interconnection networks; performance evaluation; 100 Mb/s Ethernet; 2D tents topology; MPI collective communication benchmark; NAS Parallel Benchmarks version 2.2; Pentium Pro PCs; Whitney commodity computing testbed; performance evaluation; single hub; single switch; torus network; Cities and towns; Costs; Electronic switching systems; Ethernet networks; Microcomputers; NASA; Personal communication networks; Switches; Testing; Workstations;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Frontiers of Massively Parallel Computation, 1999. Frontiers '99. The Seventh Symposium on the

Conference_Location

Annapolis, MD

Print_ISBN

0-7695-0087-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/FMPC.1999.750610

Filename

750610