List of Figures

• VIA Modules
• Work Queues Model
• Descriptor processing
• Throughput vs. data block size using MPI on a two node cluster using TCP/IP over 10baseT Ethernet.
• Throughput vs. data block size using MPI on a two node cluster using VIA over ServerNet.
• Three Level Binary Tree with Node Numbers
• Comparison of execution times of a single function with 50,000 integers for three merge algorithms.
• Application Graph showing processing nodes and data flow relationships for merge-sort.
• Graphical representation of the activity of each processor when using one node.
• Balanced binary tree for maximum parallelism. Largest communications delay is between levels one and two. This topology has the minimum communication latency for a load balanced tree.
• A nearly equivalent balanced binary tree for maximum parallelism. The difference is that the largest communications delay is between levels two and three. Performance is not significantly different from that of the topology in fig. 10.
• This topology results in the maximum amount of data passing while maintaining a workload which is balanced between the two nodes. While inefficient, it is useful for demonstrating the influence of parallelism vs. the influence of communication latency.
• This topology has the maximum amount of data passing possible for a three level binary tree distributed across two nodes. It also has practically no parallel computation. It is used as a worst case scenario.
• Graphical representation of the activity of each processor for the fastest configuration using VIA.
• Comparison of total sort times over ServerNet, over Ethernet using the same process allocation used for ServerNet, and on a single workstation.
• Effects of physical process topology on total processing time.
• 256 element array mapped into a quadtree.
• Application Graph showing processing nodes and data flow relationships for Quadtree Compression.
• Performance comparison of different system interconnects.
• Processes in white are running on workstation 0, those in green on workstation 1.
• Performance comparison of topologies in diagram above.
• Performance comparison of topologies in diagram above.
• Performance comparison of topologies in diagram above.
• Performance comparison of topologies in diagram above.