An efficient switching fabric for next-generation large-scale computer networking

In this paper, a switching fabric called the spherical switching network for high-speed applications in next-generation networking is introduced. The performance evaluation and comparison show that this network clearly outperforms typical interconnection networks currently being deployed in practical switches and routers. The spherical switching network has a cyclic, regular, and highly expandable structure with a simple self-routing scheme. The network is constructed with fixed-size switch elements regardless of the size of the network. Each switch element consists of a carefully selected sized 9 x 9 crossbar and a local controller. One of the nine pairs of links is external and carries the external traffic, and the other eight pairs are internal. The contention resolution in each switch element is based on deflection of losing packets and incremental priority of packets. In order to keep the number of deflections low, each incoming external link is connected to a buffer with flow control capabilities. Due to the special arrangement of interconnections in the network, the network operates efficiently since the occurrence of deflections is dramatically reduced. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.