Design and analysis of a growable ATM switch with multicasting capability

In this paper, we study an architecture of the growable packet switch with multicasting capability, which consists mainly of a newly proposed multicast cell distributing and copying network and a set of small-scale multicast switch modules. Particularly, we consider a specific implementation method for the multicast cell distribution network that facilitates multicasting and permits modular growth without performance degradation. The switch being studied has the following distinctive features: It can be implemented with small-scale multicast switches or trunk modules. The N x N switch fabric can be physically partitioned into small switch modules. The distributed control, self-routing and replication capabilities are preserved. An arbitrarily large switch can be constructed out of modest-size packet switches, without sacrificing overall delay/throughput performance. Multicast capabilities can be provided in the growable packet switch. Also, we analyze the switch's performance, particularly the packet loss probability according to the distributed knockout principle. From the results, we show that a small increase in the overhead of the output switch module is sufficient to maintain a multicast packet loss probability which is equivalent to that obtained in the non-multicast case.