Bounding techniques for the reliability of multistage interconnection networks

Multistage interconnection networks are widely used in multiprocessing environment. The authors introduce new, efficient methods for determining the lower and upper bounds on the probabilities of input-output communication in a multistage interconnection network. A novel lower bounding strategy (shifting) and a novel upper bounding strategy (averaging) are presented. They can be combined with existing methods based on coherence and on consecutive cuts, to obtain an improvement on previously known efficiently computable bounds. The applications in broadcasting and permutation capabilities of interconnection networks, are discussed.