An Architecture and Performance of Maestro3 Cluster Network

In cluster computing, communication performance is an important factor that determines overall performance of a cluster. The typical conventional approaches in improving communication performance are to use a dedicated cluster network and/or off loading protocols to network devices. However, in these approaches, the host processor still consumes much computing resources to process communication procedures. To improve efficiency in parallel processing, host processors has to be able to concentrate on primary computation by introducing more aggressive and flexible off loading mechanism. We are currently developing a new cluster network, called Maestro3, which has a capability of off loading user-defined software modules. Both a network interface and a switch of Masetro3 include a general purpose processor, which is tightly coupled with network hardware, and a high-capacity memory. This paper presents an architecture and preliminary evaluation of Maestro3 cluster network.