Patent ID: 8422402

Claim:
A method of broadcasting a message in a parallel computer, the parallel computer comprising a plurality of compute nodes connected together using a multicast data communications network, the multicast data communications network optimized for collective operations, one compute node configured as a physical root in the data communications network, the compute nodes organized into at least one operational group of compute nodes for collective parallel operations of the parallel computer, and one compute node assigned to be a logical root for the operational group, the plurality of compute nodes comprising a plurality computer processors and computer memory operatively coupled to the computer processors, the method comprising: transmitting, by the logical root to all of the compute nodes in the operational group directly connected to the logical root, a message for broadcasting to all of the compute nodes in the operational group, wherein the logical root and the physical root are different compute nodes within the parallel computer; and for each compute node in the operational group except the logical root: receiving, by that compute node, the message for broadcasting to all of the compute nodes in the operational group; if that compute node is the physical root, then transmitting, by that compute node, the message to all of the child nodes of the physical root except the child node from which the message was received; if that compute node received the message from the parent node for that compute node and if that compute node is not a leaf node, then transmitting, by that compute node, the message to all of the child nodes of that compute node; and if that compute node received the message from a child node and if that compute node is not the physical root, then transmitting concurrently, by that compute node, the message to the parent node of that compute node and all of the child nodes of that compute node except the child node from which the message was received, wherein the plurality of compute nodes are also connected together through an additional data communications network optimized for point-to-point operations.