Efficient single-node broadcast in switched-based network of workstations with network partitioning

This paper proposes two efficient single-node broadcasting schemes for a network of workstations (NOW) based on a network-partitioning concept. To broadcast a message, the scheme works in three phases. First, we partition the network into two sub-networks (data-distributed networks, DDN). The broadcast message is evenly divided into two sub-messages, each being sent to one representative node in each subnetwork. Second, each sub-message is distributed in its subnetwork independently. Finally, through a sub-message combination step, each node obtains the whole broadcast message. Two network-partitioning schemes, namely 0-1 partitioning and odd-even partitioning, are proposed. Through simulations on irregular and regular networks, we confirm the average latency of these schemes achieve performance improvement compared with the optimal broadcast scheme.