TR-94-03-02.ps.Z

X. Zhang, Y. Yan and Q. Ma 
``Measuring and analyzing parallel computing scalability", 

in Proceedings of 1994 International Conference of Parallel 
Processing, CRC Press, August, 1994. 

Abstract 
-------- 

In this paper we compare a group of existing scalability metrics and
evaluation models
through experiments and
analyses. This work is
mainly motivated by
an experimental metric
using network latency to measure and evaluate the
scalability of parallel programs and architectures.
Experiments of running a large physics simulation program and its
scaling variations
on the KSR-1 multiprocessor have been intensively conducted in
this study.
The scalability data are collected and visualized by
an integrated
software environment,
called S-Graph.
Our objectives are to
address fundamental issues of parallel computing scalability,
such as evaluation models, analytical and experimental metrics, and
measurement methodology;
to examine latency patterns inherent in
the architecture and the program and their effects on scalability;
and to evaluate relative merits and limits of several existing
metrics.
Our comparisons indicate that both
time-bound and memory-bound models have their limitations for
evaluating scalability performance, while efficiency-based model
could obtain reasonably precise measurements.