A Closed-Form Solution for the Perfornance Analysis of Multiple-Bus Multiprocessor Systems

A closed-form solution for the performance analysis of multiple-bus multiprocessor systems is presented. A Markovian queueing network model has been developed to investigate the effects of memory and bus contentions on the system performance. The symmetrical structure of the Markov chains of the queueing model makes it possible to demonstrate that the local balance is satisfied. Consequently, the probabilities of the states of Markov chains can be expressed by simple formulas. Processing efficiency is used as a performance measure. However, this method is easily extendable to other performance measures. To investigate the effects of the system design parameters on the multiprocessor system performance, comparative results have been obtained for a large family of multiprocessor configurations from unibus to bus-sufficient systems.