A general packet replication scheme for multicasting in interconnection networks

Multicasting in broadband packet switches and metropolitan networks can be achieved by first replicating the packets and then routing them to their destinations. This paper studies a very simple but general replication scheme that can be applied to arbitrary interconnection-network topologies. The replication process of a packet adapts itself according to the network topology and the traffic condition. Hot spots of replication activities are diffused by this scheme which automatically moves part of the replication efforts to less active network regions. The scheme can potentially be used in networks (e.g., the Manhattan-street network) in which multicasting were thought to be inherently difficult. Fundamental issues and critical problem areas are laid out, and solutions addressing them are proposed. The performance of the replication algorithm and its implementation (logic diagram level) in the shuffle-exchange copy network are investigated in detail. It is found that the performance of the algorithm improves with the increase of network dimensions.