Communication Reduction in Iterative Grid-based Computing Using SuperBoundary Exchange Technique

Iterative grid-based applications, typified by the finite difference method for solving partial differential equations [1] and spatially oriented individual-based simulations [2], are important applications for distributed computing. However, iterative grid-based distributed computations require that communication be performed at every step, which can lead to significant communication overhead. We show how a technique called SuperBoundary Exchange (SBX) for significantly reducing this overhead in finite-difference computations, first introduced in [3], can be applied to individual-based computations as well, at a cost of a somewhat coarser grid than might otherwise be necessary.