Optical Packet Switch with Partially Shared Buffers: Design Principles

摘要

We analyze the performance of an optical packet switch with partially shared buffers and we show that dimensioning of the switch predominantly depends on the number of packets that need to be buffered. In summary, the presented analysis clearly indicate that: a) in optical switch architectures with partially shared buffers the bandwidth going into the buffers is a source of internal blocking; b) the buffer bandwidth necessary for satisfactory performance is considerably less than the switch bandwidth and roughly half of the bandwidth almost removes internal blocking meaning that only half internal speed-up factor is needed and; c) the bandwidth is proportional to the number of buffered packets which depends on the traffic characteristics and the offered load.