Unstructured Mesh Computations on Networks of Workstations

Abstract

Unstructured mesh technology can be used to create highly efficient scientific and engineering application software. Networks of workstations (NOWs) provide cost-effective platforms for the timely solution of large problems in science and engineering. The performance of unstructured mesh computations on NOWs is investigated in this article. Several parallel unstructured mesh algorithms are shown informally to have computation and communication characteristics similar to those of parallel sparse matrix-by-vector multiplication. These characteristics are discussed, and the requirements they place on an interconnection network are described. Experimental data are given to summarize the communication parameters of four different NOW configurations. Finally, extensive empirical results are given to characterize the performance of unstructured mesh computations on the four NOWs.