On the performance of non-contiguous allocation for common communication patterns in 2D mesh-connected multicomputers

The communication pattern used by applications can have a major influence on the performance of non-contiguous processor allocation in multicomputers. In this paper, the performance of well-known non-contiguous allocation strategies for 2D mesh multicomputers is re-visited considering several important communication patterns. These are the Near Neighbour, Ring, Divide and Conquer Binomial Tree (DQBT), Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), and Random communication patterns. The allocation strategies investigated are the Greedy Available Busy List (GABL), Multiple Buddy Strategy (MBS), Adaptive Non-contiguous Allocation (ANCA), and Paging(0). They are compared using detailed flit-level simulations. The results show that GABL is overall superior to the remaining non-contiguous allocation strategies. It produces superior average turnaround times and mean system utilization.