Abstract
This paper presents pp-mess-sim, an object-oriented discrete-event simulation environment for evaluating interconnection networks in message-passing systems. The simulator provides a toolbox of various network topologies, communication workloads, routing-switching algorithms, and router models. By carefully defining the boundaries between these modules, pp-mess-sim creates a flexible and extensible environment for evaluating different aspects of network design. The simulator models emerging multicomputer networks that can support multiple routing and switching schemes simultaneously, pp-mess-sim achieves this flexibility by associating routing-switching policies, traffic patterns, and performance metrics with collections of packets, instead of the underlying router model. Besides providing a general framework for evaluating router architectures, pp-mess-sim includes a cycle-level model of the PRC, a programmable router for point-to-point distributed systems. The PRC model captures low-level implementation details, while another high-level model facilitates experimentation with general router design issues. Sample simulation experiments capitalize on this flexibility to compare network architectures under various application workloads.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 25-40 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems |
Volume | 8 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1997 |
Externally published | Yes |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Signal Processing
- Hardware and Architecture
- Computational Theory and Mathematics
Keywords
- Multicomputers
- Object-oriented simulation
- Routers
- Routing
- Switching