A reconfigurable ATM switch fabric for fault tolerance and traffic balancing

A large-scale asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switch fabric that can be constructed with currently feasible technology is proposed. Based on analysis of the technology, it is found that module interconnection becomes the bottleneck for a large fast packet switch. Fault tolerance for the switch is achieved by dynamic reconfiguration of the module interconnection network. The design improves system reliability with relatively low hardware overhead. An abstract model of the replacement problem for the design is presented, and the problem is transformed into a well-known assignment problem. The maximum fault tolerance is found, and a fast replacement algorithm is given. The reconfiguration capability can also be used to ameliorate imbalanced traffic flows. The authors formulate this traffic flow assignment problem for the switch fabric and show that the problem is NP-hard. A simple heuristic algorithm is proposed, and an example is given.<
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