Dual Communication Network in Program Control Based on Global Application State Monitoring

We discuss the efficiency of a novel parallel/distributed application control method, based on global state monitoring. Processes report their local states to monitors. The monitors construct global states, analyze them and send control signals to processes when necessary. The addition of a special fast control network, responsible for transferring control information, is proposed in this paper. The efficiency is tested in simulation of sample branch and bound parallel computations. We show, that multicast capability of a network plays an important role in the resulting system efficiency. Other network parameters, such as latency or bandwidth, are significant only under proper conditions. We identify these conditions, demonstrating that 5-9 times speedup can be obtained by addition of a fast control network.