Principles and Practices of Interconnection Networks (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design) [Hardcover]

William James Dally (Author), Brian Patrick Towles (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0122007514 | ISBN-13: 978-0122007514 | Edition: 1

One of the greatest challenges faced by designers of digital systems is optimizing the communication and interconnection between system components. Interconnection networks offer an attractive and economical solution to this communication crisis and are fast becoming pervasive in digital systems. Current trends suggest that this communication bottleneck will be even more problematic when designing future generations of machines. Consequently, the anatomy of an interconnection network router and science of interconnection network design will only grow in importance in the coming years.

This book offers a detailed and comprehensive presentation of the basic principles of interconnection network design, clearly illustrating them with numerous examples, chapter exercises, and case studies. It incorporates hardware-level descriptions of concepts, allowing a designer to see all the steps of the process from abstract design to concrete implementation.

·Case studies throughout the book draw on extensive author experience in designing interconnection networks over a period of more than twenty years, providing real world examples of what works, and what doesn't.

·Tightly couples concepts with implementation costs to facilitate a deeper understanding of the tradeoffs in the design of a practical network.

·A set of examples and exercises in every chapter help the reader to fully understand all the implications of every design decision.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Dally and Towles use their combined three decades of experience to create a book that elucidates the theory and practice of computer interconnection networks. On one hand, they derive
fundamentals and enumerate design alternatives. On the other, they present numerous case studies and are not afraid to give their experienced opinions on current choices and future trends. This book is a "must buy" for those interested in or designing interconnection networks.
-Mark Hill, University of Wisconsin, Madison

The scholarship of this book is unparalleled in its area. This text is for interconnection networks what Hennessy and Patterson's text is for computer architecture---an authoritative, one-stop source that clearly and methodically explains the more significant concepts. Treatment of the material both in breadth and in depth is very well done...a must read and a slam dunk!
-Timothy Mark Pinkston, University of Southern California

This book will serve as excellent teaching material, an invaluable research reference, and a very handy supplement for system designers. In addition to documenting and clearly presenting the key research findings, the book's incisive practical treatment is unique. By presenting how actual design constraints impact each facet of interconnection network design, the book deftly ties theoretical findings of the past decades to real systems design. This perspective is critically needed in engineering education.
-Li-Shiuan Peh, Princeton University

This book will instantly become a canonical reference in the field of interconnection networks. Prof. Dally's pioneering research dramatically and permanently changed this field by introducing rigorous evaluation techniques and creative solutions to the challenge of high-performance computer system communication. This well-organized textbook will benefit both students and experienced practitioners. The presentation and exercises are a result of years of classroom experience in creating this material. All in all, this is a must-have source of information.
-Craig Stunkel, IBM

Principles and Practices of Interconnection Networks is a triple threat: comprehensive, well written and authoritative. The need for this book has grown with the increasing impact of interconnects on computer system performance and cost. It will be a great tool for students and teachers alike, and will clearly help practicing engineers build better networks.
-Steve Scott, Cray Inc.

The most comprehensive and coherent work on modern interconnection networks. As leaders in the field, Dally and Towles capitalize on their vast experience as researchers and engineers to present both the theory behind such networks and the practice of building them. This book is a necessity for anyone studying, analyzing, or designing interconnection networks.
-Stephen W. Keckler, The University of Texas at Austin

Book Description

A solid source of information from a pioneer in the field.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 550 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 1 edition (January 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0122007514
• ISBN-13: 978-0122007514
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 9.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #320,433 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent text, May 2, 2004

By 

Srini (Stanford, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Principles and Practices of Interconnection Networks (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design) (Hardcover)

This book is the "Hennessy & Patterson" for interconnection networks area. The book covers almost all aspects of theoritical and practical issues involved in designing interconnection networks. The concepts are presented in very simple fashion. A very well written exahaustive text. Must read for any computer architect!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars only presents very simple cases, not always sound in fundamentals, September 3, 2010

By 

raindrops - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Principles and Practices of Interconnection Networks (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design) (Hardcover)

I had high expectations for this book given the table of contents. In particular, I was interested in chapters on arbitration, flow control, live lock and dead lock. These are topics that I have not seen comprehensive coverage on elsewhere. What I found was that most of the text is spent on describing very simple cases, in a wordy manner that actually makes the easy cases harder to understand. The book stops as soon as there is the least bit of complexity. This is very disappointing as it doesn't even mention the limited cases that I'm aware of. It certainly falls very short of providing a comprehensive survey of known complexities in these subjects.

On the topic of flow control, I was appalled to see it described as a way to utilize existing buffer resources as if the number of buffers are decided ahead of time, independent of flow control when the number of buffers are actually an integral part of flow control decisions. I was further shocked to see diagrams that only show one node in explaining flow control when flow control is fundamentally about communication between two nodes. Zooming in on one of the two nodes is really missing the basics of flow control.

As a result, I cannot recommend this book.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding text for practitioners and academics alike, December 18, 2006

By 

Dennis C. Abts "dabts" (Chippewa Falls, WI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Principles and Practices of Interconnection Networks (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design) (Hardcover)

This book provides the reader with a comprehensive text on interconnection networks. Dally and Towles provide a thorough treatment of the impact of system packaging, topology, and routing algorithms on the overall system performance. Numerous examples of systems from both industry (Cray, SGI) and academia (MIT J-Machine) are provided to illustrate the concepts in practice. Every computer architect should own this book, whether they are doing on-chip networks, IP routers, network processors, or large-scale supercomputers.