A new switch buffer architecture for dragonfly networks

Dragonfly networks offer a viable solution for large-scale supercomputers and datacenters. However, developing efficient routing mechanisms for these networks presents significant challenges. Current solutions often lead to unstable network behavior due to congestion and fairness issues, exacerbatin...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Cano Cos, Alejandro, Camarero Coterillo, Cristóbal|||0000-0001-6418-2614, Martínez Fernández, María del Carmen|||0000-0002-9815-239X, Beivide Palacio, Ramón|||0000-0002-9591-7078
Format: article
Publication Date:2026
Country:España
Institution:Universidad de Cantabria (UC)
Repository:UCrea Repositorio Abierto de la Universidad de Cantabria
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.unican.es:10902/39407
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10902/39407
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Interconnection network
Buffer architecture
Deadlock
Fairness
Routing algorithm
Description
Summary:Dragonfly networks offer a viable solution for large-scale supercomputers and datacenters. However, developing efficient routing mechanisms for these networks presents significant challenges. Current solutions often lead to unstable network behavior due to congestion and fairness issues, exacerbating performance variability and the tail-latency problem. An analysis of the topology and its standard deadlock avoidance mechanisms reveals that server access to global network links varies based on their location in the network, resulting in throughput unfairness. To address this issue, this paper introduces a novel switch buffer architecture which reduces headof-line blocking and enhances fairness, to significantly improve overall network performance. Despite offering comparable cost to existing solutions, the proposed buffer architecture proves superior performance. Real-world synthetic simulations scenarios further confirm these findings, showing performance improvements between 10 % and 47 % against conventional solutions in medium sized Dragonflies.