Performance evaluation of multipoint communication on HIPPI over ATM networks

Abstract

The high performance parallel interface (HIPPI) is primarily a channel technique and provides a simplex point-to-point interface for transferring data at a peak rate of 800 or 1600 Mbps over distances of up to 25 meters. In order to extend the use of HIPPI from a channel solution to a networking solution, the physical limitation of HIPPI must be solved. The HIPPI-ATM mapping can be one of the possible solutions and allow communication over a relatively long distance by using HIPPI-ATM converters. We first suggest that the multipoint-to-multipoint communication of HIPPI over ATM networks does not perform well although an unique flow control between source-site and destination-site HIPPI-ATM converters is applied on each connection. In order to effectively establish multipoint-to-multipoint communication, we thus propose additional flow control schemes on HIPPI over ATM networks, that is, a peak-rate control scheme and a connection control scheme. We further formulate both throughput and packet transmission delay performance under these schemes and compare the performance and the complexity of the implementation of both schemes.