Distributed routing protocols for ATM extended Banyan networks

It is well known that a multistage banyan network, which is a single-path blocking structure, becomes rearrangeable nonblocking in a circuit-switching environment if the number of its stages is increased so as to obtain a Benes network. Banyan networks, provided with a shared queue in each switching element, have often been proposed as the core of an interconnection network for an ATM packet switching environment. In this scenario, if the classical interstage backpressure protocols are used, adding stages to a banyan network can even degrade the banyan network performance, in spite of the multipath capability given by the additional stages. A class of new simple interstage protocols is here defined to operate in the added stages of the banyan network so that a sort of sharing of the queueing capability in each added stage is accomplished. Large improvements in the traffic performance of these extended banyan networks are obtained, especially in the region of offered loads providing a low packet loss probability.