Effects of Network Configurations on Performance of Beowulf-class Clusters

In this paper, the effects of different network configurations on the performance of Beowulf-class clusters were studied. Two parallel applications, LU decomposition and linear equation solver were selected from ScaLAPACK to evaluate performance differences of each configuration. Performance of the Ethernet hub and the Ethernet switch were tested and compared. The performance enhancement from cut-through switching in the Ethernet switches were also studied. Secondly, we investigated performance gain from a separate NFS network. The test results show that, in a low-cost cluster, the performance gain obtained from expensive switches and additional network devices is not significant, especially when priceperformance tradeoff is considered.