Multichannel bandwidth allocation in a broadband packet switch |
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Authors: | Pattavina A |
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Affiliation: | Bellcore, Morristown, NJ; |
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Abstract: | The problem of bandwidth allocation in a packet switch supporting broadband services is addressed. To reduce the performance constraints imposed by limiting a data link to a single broadband packet channel, the author introduces the concept of channel group as a set of broadband packet channels that is viewed as a single data-link connection by routing entities. He uses a two-step bandwidth allocation scheme. At connection setup time, a call is allocated to a channel group. At transmission time, specific channels of a group are optimally allocated to the packets destined to the group. Because of the statistical smoothing of the large number of sources served by a channel group, the traffic performance of the switch is improved. This scheme also allows super-rate switching, i.e., the support of services with peak bandwidth exceeding the capacity of a single packet channel. The author shows the feasibility of this scheme in a Batcher-banyan switch, by implementing in hardware the bandwidth allocation at transmission time. Performance improvements obtained by this scheme are also provided in different traffic environments |
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