Clos lives on in optical packet switching

Author

Cheyns, Jan ; Develder, Chris ; Van Breusegem, Erik ; Colle, Didier ; De Turck, Filip ; Lagasse, Paul ; Pickavet, Mario ; Demeester, Piet

Author_Institution

Ghent Univ., Belgium

Volume

42

Issue

2

fYear

2004

fDate

2/1/2004 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

114

Lastpage

121

Abstract

While the technological evolution since C. Clos´s seminal article (see Bell Sys. Tech. J., vol.32, p.406-24, 1953) on multistage switch architectures has been huge, his work and ideas still live on. We discuss node architectures for optical packet switching and show how the multistage approach proposed by Clos can be adopted to solve scalability issues and construct switches with large port counts. As in the old days, the driving factors behind the introduction of multistage concepts also include economic issues: compared to a single-stage architecture, the number of components to realize the switching fabric is reduced.

Keywords

multistage interconnection networks; packet switching; photonic switching systems; Clos networks; economic issues; multistage switch architectures; optical packet switching; scalability issues; switching fabric; Bandwidth; Circuits; Costs; Optical control; Optical fiber networks; Optical packet switching; Optical switches; Payloads; Routing; Telecommunication traffic;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Communications Magazine, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0163-6804

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/MCOM.2003.1267109

Filename

1267109