A New Theory of Deadlock-Free Adaptive Routing in Wormhole Networks
IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems
Performance Evaluation of Adaptive Routing Algorithms for k-ary-n-cubes
PCRCW '94 Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Parallel Computer Routing and Communication
Dynamic Voltage Scaling with Links for Power Optimization of Interconnection Networks
HPCA '03 Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture
Exploring the Design Space of Power-Aware Opto-Electronic Networked Systems
HPCA '05 Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture
Software-directed power-aware interconnection networks
ACM Transactions on Architecture and Code Optimization (TACO)
Exploring the Design Space of Self-Regulating Power-Aware On/Off Interconnection Networks
IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems
A Lightweight Fault-Tolerant Mechanism for Network-on-Chip
NOCS '08 Proceedings of the Second ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Networks-on-Chip
Dynamic power saving in fat-tree interconnection networks using on/off links
IPDPS'06 Proceedings of the 20th international conference on Parallel and distributed processing
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Nowadays, high-degree switches are available as building blocks of the interconnection network of clusters of PCs. An alternative to take advantage of the high number of switch ports is to connect every pair of switches through not only one but several links (this is known as link trunking in other environments). This extra connectivity can be exploited by using adaptive routing algorithms, thus improving network throughput and reducing network congestion. However with low traffic loads, all the links that compose the trunk link will not be utilized, but this idle links continue consuming power. Power consumption reduction techniques are being applied everywhere in computer systems and the interconnection network is not an exception, as its contribution is not negligible. In this paper, we present a mechanism that dynamically switches on and off network links as a function of traffic. It is specially targeted to those networks where trunk links are used. The mechanism can switch off any link, provided that network connectivity is guaranteed, (i.e. every pair of switches should be connected through at least one active link). Indeed, this restriction makes possible to use the same routing algorithm regardless the power saving actions taken, thus simplifying router design. Our simulation results show that the network power consumption can be greatly reduced, at the expense of some increase in latency. Nevertheless, it is shown that the power reduction is always higher that this latency increase.