Distributed sorting on local area networks

A straight-line-topology local area network (LAN) to which a number of nodes are connected either in series or in parallel is considered. A file F is arbitrarily partitioned among these sites. The problem studied is that of rearranging the records of the file such that the keys of records at lower-ranking sites are all smaller than those at higher-ranking sites. Lower bounds on the worst-case communication complexity are given for both the series and parallel arrangements, and algorithms optimal for all networks and files are presented