Network-based computing systems often require the ability to reconfigure the routing algorithm to reflect changes in network topology if and when those changes occur. The process of reconfiguring a network's routing capabilities may lead to deadlock if not handled properly. In this paper we propose efficient and deadlock-free dynamic reconfiguration techniques that are generically applicable to distributed routing algorithms and networks, including those which use wormhole switching. The proposed techniques do not impede the transmission of packets during the reconfiguration process, thus providing increased network availability and quality-of-service (QoS) support as compared to traditional techniques based on static reconfiguration.
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