Efficient many-to-many real-time communication using an intelligent Ethernet switch

This paper presents a solution for efficient many-to-many communication over switched Ethernet. The performance of using an ordinary switch and an intelligent switch is compared, and the results of the analysis based on 100 Mbit/s fast Ethernet show that an intelligent switch used to handle many-to-many communication can give better performance (shorter latency and higher utilization) than an ordinary switch. We also extend the network to serve many-to-many traffic with real-time demands by adding a thin software layer to the intelligent Ethernet switch and the end-nodes. Earliest deadline first (EDF) scheduling is used.