Significance of Problem Solving Parameters on the Performance of Combinatorial Algorithms on Multi-Computer Parallel Architectures

This paper describes the interaction between specific algorithm parameters and the parallel computer architecture. The classes of architectures we consider are those which have inherent distributed control and whose connection structure is regular. Combinatorial problems require solutions which do searching. This experiment has determined an optimum problem solving strategy for the consistent labeling problem. One combination of factors, depth first search strategy-transmit large problems-transmit 50% of a processor's work, was found to be statistically best, especially for large problem sizes or for architectures with restricted communications paths.