VLAN-based minimal paths in PC cluster with Ethernet on mesh and torus

In a PC cluster with Ethernet, well-distributed multiple paths among hosts can be obtained by applying VLAN technology. In this paper, we propose VLAN topology sets and path assignment methods in mesh and torus. The proposed VLAN-based methods on mesh require N/sup M-1/ and /spl lfloor/N/sup M-1//2/spl rfloor/+1 VLANs to provide balanced minimal paths and partially balanced ones respectively, where N is the number of switches per dimension and M is the number of dimensions. Similarly, those on torus require 2N/sup M-1/ and N/sup M-1/+2 VLANs respectively. Simulation results show that the proposed methods improve up to 902% and 706% of throughput respectively.