VIRTUAL MAINTENANCE NETWORK IN MULTIPROCESSING SYSTEM

摘要

A multiprocessor computer system includes processing element nodes interconnected with physical communication links in an n-dimensional topology. A flow controlled virtual channel has virtual channel buffers assigned to each physical communication link to store packets containing information to be transferred between the processing element nodes. A non-flow controlled virtual maintenance channel has maintenance channel buffers assigned to each physical communication link to store packets of maintenance information to be transferred between the processing element nodes. The virtual maintenance channel is assigned a higher priority for accessing the physical communication links than the flow controlled virtual channel.