Using Programmable P4 Switches to Reduce Communication Costs of Parallel and Distributed Simulations

Abstract

In the past, several time synchronization methods have been proposed for parallel and distributed simulation (PDS). Among them, one widely used conservative method is the Chandy-Misra-Bryant (CMB) algorithm. In the CMB algorithm, many null messages may be exchanged among logical processes to advance their clocks so that deadlock will not occur among them. In this work, using a data-plane programmable P4 hardware switch, we design and implement a data fusion-based approach inside the packet processing pipeline of the P4 switch. Our approach extracts the timestamp carried in exchanged null messages, computes the fusion results of these timestamps, drops unnecessary null messages inside the switch, generates new messages carrying the fusion results, and sends these generated messages to only the logical processes that can benefit from receiving these messages. Experimental results show that on an 8-host testbed, our approach can speed up a PDS by a factor of 2.75 and 1.65 when compared with the unicast and multicast approaches, respectively.