The need for high computation power and advances in VLSI and communications technology has led to the rapid development of high-performance parallel, cluster, and grid-based computing systems. Besides the technological advances, parallelism in all level of computation (thread, instruction, task, and program) has been exploited in such computing systems. Investigating performance issues in such systems has proven to be a challenging task that requires the innovative performance analysis tools and methods to keep up with the rapid evolution and ever increasing complexity of such systems. This workshop will bring together scientists, engineers, practitioners, and computer users to share and exchange their experiences, discuss challenges, and report state-of-the-art and in-progress research on all aspects of performance modelling, evaluation, simulation, and measurement of networks for parallel, cluster and grid computing systems. Along the line of three major evaluation techniques, i.e. measurement, analytic modeling and simulation, this special issue will cover various topics on quantitative modeling, simulation and measurement/testing of networks for parallel, cluster, and grid systems. The topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

• Predictive performance models of networks for parallel, cluster, and grid systems
• Performance measurement and monitoring tools
• Tracing and trace analysis
• Simulation
• Parallel, distributed, and grid-based algorithms and their performance
• Topological properties of networks for parallel, cluster, and grid systems
• Analytical modeling of networks for parallel, cluster, and grid systems
• Performance tools of networks for parallel, cluster, and grid systems
• Workload characterization and traffic modeling of parallel, cluster, and grid applications
• Performance evaluation of networks for parallel, cluster, and grid systems
• Performance evaluation of memory and I/O systems for parallel, cluster, and grid systems
• Performance of systems-on-chip and parallel VLSI computing systems
• Performance-engineered future generation parallel, cluster, and grid computing systems
• Improvement in system performance through optimization and tuning
• Case studies showing the role of performance evaluation in the design of networks for parallel, cluster, and grid systems
  
  
  

Authors are invited to submit manuscripts reporting original unpublished research and recent developments in the topics related to the workshop. The length of the papers should not exceed 20 double-spaced pages including figures and references on 8.5 by 11 inch paper using at least 11 point font. Papers should be submitted electronically in PDF format (or postscript) by sending it as an e-mail attachment to PEN -PCGCS-2006@ipm.ir. All papers will be peer reviewed and the comments will be provided to the authors. The accepted papers will be published together with those of other ICPP'06 workshops by the IEEE Computer Society. A special issue will be planned in a scholarly journal to include selected high-quality papers from the workshop.