Summary Networks for QCD Clusters

For QCD computations with next-neighbour communication, Gigabit ethernet meshes can be a reasonably cheap and efficient network solution
Meshes are scalable for local problems
Combine a mesh with switched network to achieve scalability for complex applications
Aggregate BW potentially reaches 800 MB/s
Need PCI-X
Challenge: Communication software must be able to serve all dimensions at the same time
Costs: 15 to 25 % of total cost, depending on type of nodes (single, dual)

For QCD computations with next-neighbour communication, Gigabit ethernet meshes can be a reasonably cheap and efficient network solution