MPI Benchmarking on Google Compute Platform Revisit

A recent revisit to Google Compute Engine's (GCE) instances has revealed significant improvements in network performance, particularly in latency and bandwidth for different instance types. Using the OSU Micro Benchmarks version 5.3.2, tests were conducted on Debian GNU/Linux 8 with MPICH3 across three instance types: n1-standard-32, n1-highmem-32, and n1-highcpu-32, ensuring they were on separate physical hosts for accurate network measurements. The average latency for these instances was found to be around 40 to 45 microseconds, a notable enhancement from previous results of around 180 microseconds. In terms of bidirectional bandwidth, the n1-highmem-32 instance exhibited the highest performance, reaching up to 1076.29 MB/s, consistent with Google’s official network throughput documentation. These findings suggest that GCE has optimized its offerings to better support high-performance computing applications.