Performance analysis of dynamic load balancing algorithms with variable number of processors

In modern parallel adaptive mesh computations the problem size varies during simulation. In this study we investigate the comparative behavior of four load balancing algorithms when the number of processors is dynamically changed during the lifetime of a multistage parallel computation. The focus is on communication and data movement overheads, total parallel runtime and total resource consumption. We demonstrate the main ideas for the case of six adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) applications with different kinds of growth patterns. The results presented are for a 32 processor Intel cluster connected by Ethernet.