New solutions to the mapping problem of parallel systems: The evolution approach

Abstract Problems concerning parallel computers can be understood and solved using results of natural sciences. We show that the mapping problem—assigning processes to processors—can be reduced to the graph partitioning problem. We solve the partitioning problem by an evolution method derived from biology. The evolution method is then applied to the travelling salesman problem. The competition part of the evolution method gives an almost linear speedup compared to the sequential method. A cooperation method leads to new heuristics giving better results than the known heuristics.