Broadcast scheduling for wide-area parallel distributed systems

Abstract

Parallel distributed systems in which multiple computers are connected through LAN and WAN are widely used at present. One of the important functions of parallel distributed systems is broadcasting to distribute data over an entire system. Broadcast processing greatly affects the performance of parallel distributed systems, and it is desirable to develop a distribution procedure that completes the processing in a short time. Consequently, there have been many approaches to the minimum broadcast time problem, aiming at the optimal distribution procedure. However, not many past studies of this problem consider a wide-area system in which multiple parallel distributed systems are connected. In this context, this paper considers the minimum broadcast time problem for a wide-area parallel distributed system whose topology can be represented by a certain kind of split graph. It is shown that the problem can be solved in polynomial time in the homogeneous parallel distributed system in which the time required for communication is uniform. In addition, a heuristic algorithm is proposed for a heterogeneous parallel distributed system in which the time required for communication is not uniform. Simulation results reveal that an efficient distribution procedure can be derived in a short time. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 3, 88(4): 11–23, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecjc.20137