Use of the parallel port to measure MPI intertask communication costs in COTS PC clusters

Performance analysis of system time parameters is important for the development of parallel and distributed programs because it provides a means of estimating program execution times and it is important for scheduling tasks on processors. Measuring time intervals between events occurring in different nodes of COTS clusters of workstations is not a trivial task due to the absence of a unified clock view. We propose a different approach to measure system time parameters and program performance in clusters with the aid of the parallel port present in every machine of a COTS cluster. Some experimental values of communication delays using the MPI library in a Linux PC cluster are presented and the efficiency and precision of the proposed mechanism are analyzed.