Cluster system using fiber channel as an interconnection network analysis

Abstract

In the parallel processing system, large numbers of processors are interconnected in order to improve the performance of the computer, such as the symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) architecture. When the basic node is an SMP or a computer having a single processor, the characteristics of an interconnection networks are important factors which influence the performance of the entire system. Fibre Channel (FC) has a lot advantages, such as excellent scalability; the bandwidth is large; delay time is short and fault tolerance is large. It is assumed that an SMP is used for a basic node. We construct the cluster system using FC as interconnection network, which are a fabric method and a FC Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) method. According the method, if the number of nodes supported by the interconnection network is small, the addition of extra nodes can be added at small expense. The bandwidth of each node is large, the delay time is short, and the fault tolerance effect is large in the interconnection network. In the case of connecting to a shared disk, a large bandwidth is provided and time required for gaining access to the shared disk becomes short.