Balancing traffic load for multi-node multicast in a wormhole 2-D torus/mesh

Abstract

This paper considers the multi-node multicast problem in a wormhole-routed 2-D torus/mesh, where an arbitrary number of source nodes each intends to multicast a message to an arbitrary set of destinations. To resolve the contention and the congestion problems, we propose to partition the network into subnetworks to distribute, and thus balance, the traffic load among all network links. Several ways to partition the network are explored. The network-partitioning idea was used in earlier works for single-node broadcast and single-node multicast. This paper contributes in extending its applicability to multi-node multicast and demonstrating its capability to balance load on torus/mesh. Simulation results show significant improvement over existing results for torus and mesh networks.