Performance optimization of multi-level control networks in a fast circuit/packet switching system

The performance of a fast packet/circuit switching system using internal out-of-band signaling and a multilevel control network is evaluated in the paper. By using both analytical and simulation approaches, the authors show that for a given traffic condition there exists an optimal cluster size which minimizes the connection setup service time. Because of the dependency of the optimal cluster size on the input traffic rate, they propose a reconfigurable control architecture in which the cluster size dynamically adapts to the traffic load. Using this control structure, the system throughput is optimized over a wider range of operating conditions as compared to those with fixed cluster size