Report Number: CSL-TR-93-573
Institution: Stanford University, Computer Systems Laboratory
Title: Performance of a Three-Stage Banyan-Based Architecture with Input and Output Buffers for Large Fast Packet Switches
Author: Chiussi, Fabio M.
Author: Tobagi, Fouad A.
Date: June 1993
Abstract: Fast packet switching, also referred to as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), has emerged as the most appropriate switching technique to handle the high data rates and the wide diversity of traffic requirements envisioned in Broadband Integrated Services Digital Networks (B-ISDN). ATM switches capable of meeting the challenges posed by a successful deployment of B-ISDN must be designed and implemented. Such switches should be nonblocking and capable of handling the highly-bursty traffic conditions that future anticipated applications will generate; they should be scalable to the large sizes expected when B-ISDN becomes widely deployed; accordingly, their complexity should be as low as possible; they should be simple to operate; namely, their architecture should facilitate the determination of whether or not a call can be accepted, and the assignment of a route to a call. In this paper, we describe an architecture, referred to as the Memory/Space/Memory switching fabric, which meets these challenges. It combines input and output shared-memory buffer components with space-division banyan networks, making it possible to build a switch with several hundred I/O ports. The MSM achieves output buffering, thus performing very well under a wide variety of traffic conditions, and is self-routing, thus adapting easily to different traffic mixes. Under bursty traffic, by implementing a backpressure mechanism to control the packet flow from input to output queues, and by properly managing the buffers, we can increase the average buffer occupancy; in this way, we can achieve important reductions in total buffer requirements with respect to output-buffer switches (e.g., up to 70% reduction with bursts of average length equal to 100 packets), use input and output buffers of equal sizes, and achieve sublinear increase of the buffer requirements with the burst length.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/csl/tr/93/573/CSL-TR-93-573.pdf