Performance analysis of layer3 switch: case of flow-driven connection setup

The layer3 switch enables us to fast transmit IP datagrams using the cut-through technique. The current layer3 router would become a bottleneck in terms of delay performance, as the amount of traffic injected into high speed networks gets relatively large. Thus, the layer3 switch should be an important element in constructing the next generation Internet backbone. We analyze the cut-through rate, the datagram waiting time and the mis-ordered rate of a layer3 switch in case of flow-driven connection setup. In the analysis, by using a 3-state Markov modulated Bernoulli process (MMBP), we model the arrival process of IP flow and IP datagram from each source. Furthermore, we investigate impacts of the arrival rate and the average datagram length on performance.