Architecture and Performance Analysis of the Multicast Balanced Gamma Switch for Broadband Communications1

Abstract

This paper presents the architecture design as well as the performance analysis of a new cell-based multicast switch for broadband communications. Using distributed control and a modular design, the Balanced Gamma (BG) switch features a high performance for unicast, multicast and combined traffic under both random and bursty conditions. Although it has buffers on input and output ports, the multicast BG switch follows predominantly an output-buffered architecture. The performance is studied under uniform and non-uniform multicast traffic in terms of cell loss ratio and cell delay. The results are compared with those from an ideal pure output-buffered multicast switch to demonstrate how close its performance is to that of the ideal but impractical switch. Comparisons with other published switches reveals the superior of the BG switch and the tradeoffs between complexity and performance in a packet switch design. It is shown that the multicast BG switch achieves a performance close to the ideal switch while keeping hardware complexity reasonable.