Nonuniform output traffic distributions in the multipath crossbar network

Abstract

Multipath interconnection networks can support higher bandwidth than those of nonblocking networks by passing multiple packets to the same output simultaneously and these packets are buffered in the output buffer. The delay-throughput performance of the output buffer in multipath networks is closely related to output traffic distribution, packet arrival process at each output link connected to a given output buffer. The output traffic distributions are different according to the various input traffic patterns. Focusing on nonuniform output traffic distributions, this paper develops a new, general analytic model of the output buffer in multipath networks, which enables us to investigate the delay-throughput performance of the output buffer under various input traffic patterns. This paper also introduces Multipath Crossbar network as a representative multipath network which is the base architecture of our analysis. It is shown that the output buffer performances such as packet loss probability and delay improve as nonuniformity of the output traffic distribution becomes larger.