Multipath interconnection: a technique for reducing congestion within fast packet switching fabrics

The banyan interconnection is prone to internal link congestion, resulting in a blocking switch architecture. Several solutions that have been implemented to reduce the severity of link congestion offer packets a multiplicity of paths, which tend to increase packet delay variability and allow delivery of out-of-sequence packets. This, in turn, can lead to an increase in end-to-end protocol complexity, particularly in the case of real-time services. A solution called multipath interconnection is proposed to overcome this difficulty. Multiple (i.e., alternate) paths are provided and one is selected at call-setup time. Subsequent packets belonging to the call are constrained to follow the selected path. A number of path selection strategies are presented.<>