Skywalk: A topology for HPC networks with low-delay switches

With low-delay switches on the horizon, end-to-end latency in large-scale High Performance Computing (HPC) interconnects will be dominated by cable delays. In this context we define a new network topology, Skywalk, for deploying low-latency interconnects in upcoming HPC systems. Skywalk uses randomness to achieve low latency, but does so in a way that accounts for the physical layout of the topology so as to lead to further cable length and thus latency reductions. Via graph analysis and discrete-event simulation we show that Skywalk compares favorably (in terms of latency, cable length, and throughput) to traditional low-degree torus and moderate-degree hypercube topologies, to high-degree fully-connected Dragonfly topologies, to the HyperX topology, and to recently proposed fully random topologies.