Research Article
A System Interconnection Device for Small-Scale Clusters
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-319-38904-2_36, author={Ye Ren and Young Kim and Hag Kim}, title={A System Interconnection Device for Small-Scale Clusters}, proceedings={Cloud Computing. 6th International Conference, CloudComp 2015, Daejeon, South Korea, October 28-29, 2015, Proceedings}, proceedings_a={CLOUDCOMP}, year={2016}, month={5}, keywords={Cluster Interconnect PCI Express Throughput}, doi={10.1007/978-3-319-38904-2_36} }- Ye Ren
Young Kim
Hag Kim
Year: 2016
A System Interconnection Device for Small-Scale Clusters
CLOUDCOMP
Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-38904-2_36
Abstract
The performance of a physical cluster ultimately depends on two factors. One is the capability of individual computing nodes and the other is the networking speed among them. Recent processors are being greatly developed in terms of enhancing the processing speed while lowering the monetary cost. As for the networking technologies, nowadays dominant solutions have disadvantages such as high installation price and low protocol efficiency. Such drawbacks become the bottleneck of improving the ‘performance per cost’ ratio of the cluster as a whole. This paper proposes an alternative system interconnection device especially for application in small-scale clusters. The non-transparent bridges in PCI Express technology are employed to allow PCI Express packets to directly transmit across networked computing nodes. The performance is measured under two kinds of data transmission schemes, with two different benchmarking tools, respectively. Currently the proposed device delivers a peak unidirectional throughput of 8.6 gigabits per second.