Impact of multiple consumption channels on wormhole routed k-ary n-cube networks

This paper presents a performance evaluation of multiple consumption channels in wormhole routed k-ary n-cube networks. The hotspots produced by non-uniform traffic patterns result in consumption bottleneck. The effects of this bottleneck are examined. The interplay between the number of consumption channels, the underlying routing algorithm, and the topology, is examined from the perspective of overall network performance. Two different communication patterns, all-to-one and non-uniform traffic are used in the study. The authors show that the severity of consumption bottleneck increases as the degree of adaptiveness in a routing algorithm increases, i.e., going from oblivious to partial to fully adaptive routing. They conclude that multiple consumption channels (upto 4 for 2D, 3D and 4D meshes and upto 8 for 8-cube) are desired to reduce the severity of this bottleneck and to exploit the advantages of adaptive routing schemes.<>