Cost Performance Analysis in Multi-level Tree Networks

A monetary network cost problem involving a homogeneous multi-level tree of processors and links is discussed. The monetary network cost of processing a divisible load, which is linearly dependent on the amount of divisible workload, is basically composed of a communication cost and a computing cost. A monetary network analysis is performed by aggregating the network speed parameters and network cost parameters. This allows one to obtain a closed form solution for the total monetary network cost with maintaining a minimum total parallel processing finish time. Through a mathematical derivation of the ratio of total computing time variation to total network cost variation against changes in network size, insights on trends of network performance against network cost are achieved.