Editorial board

The Practical Fat Tree Network (PFN) is proposed as an efficient interconnection structure for parallel processing computers using a butterfly network. It satisfies the concept of volume universality from Leiserson's theoretical fat tree network [1]. In the fat tree network, the locality of input traffic is a very important factor because it has significant effects on performance. The proposed performance model effectively highlights this locality factor. Performance is analyzed according to varing input traffic loads and buffer sizes. The accuracy of the model is confirmed by comparing its results with those from simulation. The proposed model is found to be very accurate. Although the PFN is a dynamic connection network, it shows low delay and high throughput for the applications that have locality.