Analyzing performance of large scale parallel systems

It is a well known fact that given a parallel architecture and a problem of a fixed site, the speedup of a parallel algorithm does not continue to increase with increasing number of processors. It usually tends to saturate or peak at a certain limit. Thus it may not be useful to employ more than an optimal number of processors for solving a problem on a parallel computer. This optimal number of processors depends on the problem sine, the parallel algorithm and the parallel architecture. In this paper we study the impact of parallel processing overheads and the degree of concurrency of a parallel algorithm on the optimal number of processors to be used when the criterion for optimality is minimizing the parallel execution time. We then study a more general criterion of optimality and show how operating at the optimal point is equivalent to operating at a unique value of eflciency which is characteristic of the criterion of optimality and the properties of the parallel system under study. We put the technical results derived in this paper in perspective with similar results that have appeared in the literature before and show how this paper generalizes and/or extends these earlier results.