Levels of aggregation in flow switching networks

It appears that aggregation of traffic in some IP networks is necessary in order to control the total number of flows but this is not required in all networks. Aggregation tends to negate some of the benefits of flow switching such as hardware multicast, traffic control and quality of service commitments although these can potentially still be provided if suitable aggregation methods are developed. A combination of aggregate and fine grained flow switching is an attractive compromise solution for the near term but is limited in its ability to support large numbers of fine grained flows. Mechanisms exist for changing the level of aggregation within a network that provides end-to-end switching of fine grained flows but some careful attention has to be paid to the frame management issues at the aggregation points. With these thoughts in mind it appears that an implementation of flow switching should allow the network manager to determine aggregation policy and where the aggregation points should be located