Towards optimal load balancing topologies

Abstract

Many load balancing algorithms balance the load according to a certain topology. Its choice can significantly influence the performance of the algorithm. We consider a two phase balancing model. The first phase calculates a balancing flow with respect to a topology by applying a diffusion scheme. The second phase migrates the load according to the balancing flow. The cost functions of the phases depend on various properties of the topology; for the first phase these are the maximum node degree and the number of eigenvalues of the network topology, for the second phase these are a small flow volume and a small diameter of the topology. We compare and propose various network topologies with respect to these properties. Experiments on a Cray T3E and on a cluster of PCs confirm our cost functions for both balancing phases.