On the influence of the selection function on the performance of networks of workstations

Abstract

Previous research has pointed out the influence of adaptive routing on the performance improvement of interconnection networks for clusters of workstations. One of the design issues of adaptive routing algorithms is the selection function, which selects the output channel among all the available choices. In this paper we analyze in detail several selection functions in order to evaluate their influence on network performance. Simulation results show that network throughput may be increased up to 10%. When network is close to saturation, improvements in latency up to 40% may be achieved.