Performance evaluation of hierarchical caching in high-speed routers

This paper reports on both analytical and simulation studies of the performance of hierarchical caching for route information in high-speed routers. We extract hit rates in different caching levels and associated delays for routed packets through this type of routing-table management. A simple analysis deals with the small routers case, involving a restricted number of network interfaces or bounded cache sizes. Then we extend this model to any number of ports by simulation. The main results of this study provide network managers with important issues about tuning their routers.