Implementations of Hypercube Networks based on TCP/IP for PC Clusters

In general, we use a Parallel processing computer manufactured specially for the purpose of parallel processing to do high performance computings. But we can depoly and use a PC cluster composed of several common PCs instead of the very expensive parallel processing computer. A common way to get a PC cluster is to adopt the star topology network connected by a switch hub. But in this paper, we grope efficient implementations of hypercube networks based on TCP/IP to connect 8 PCs directly for more useful parallel processing environment, and make evaluations on functionality and efficiency of them using ping, netperf, MPICH. The two proposed methods of implementation are IP configuration based on link and IP configuration based on node. The results of comparison between them show that there is not obvious difference in performance but the latter is more efficient in simplicity of routing table. For verification of functionality, we compare the parallel processing results of an application in them with the same in a star network based PC cluster. These results also show that the proposed hypercube networks support a perfect parallel processing environment respectively.