Improving performance of networks of workstations by using Disha Concurrent

Networks of workstations are currently emerging as a cost-effective alternative to parallel computers. Recently, deadlock recovery techniques have been shown to be an alternative to deadlock avoidance. Disha Concurrent is a progressive deadlock recovery scheme able to simultaneously redirect several deadlocked messages through a deadlock-free lane. Unlike deadlock avoidance techniques, Disha provides true fully adaptive routing without using virtual channels to guarantee deadlock freedom. In this paper, we analyze the application of Disha to networks of workstations. We propose an implementation of Disha on irregular networks that allows concurrent deadlock recovery proving that this implementation is always able to recover from deadlock. A new switch organization and a new flow control protocol are proposed to support Disha. Performance evaluation results show that applying Disha to irregular networks increases network throughput by a factor of up to 3.5, and also reduces latency with regard to other routing algorithms based on deadlock avoidance techniques.