A Survey of ATM Switching Techniques

Sonia Fahmy, Ohio State University

Abstract -Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switching is not defined in the ATM standards, but a lot of research has been done to explore various ATM switch design alternatives. Each design has its own merits and drawbacks, in terms of throughput, delay, scalability, buffer sharing and fault tolerance. By examining the features of the basic switch designs, several conclusions can be inferred about the design principles of ATM switching, and the various tradeoffs involved in selecting the appropriate approach.

Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Switching Functions
  • 2.1 User Plane
  • 2.2 Control Plane
  • 2.3 Management Plane
  • 2.4 Traffic Control Functions
• 3. A Generic Switching Architecture
  • 3.1 Switch Interface
    • 3.1.1 Input Modules
    • 3.1.2 Output Modules
  • 3.2 Cell Switch Fabric
  • 3.3 Connection Admission Control (CAC)
  • 3.4 Switch Management
• 4. The Cell Switch Fabric
  • 4.1 Concentration, Expansion and Multiplexing
  • 4.2 Routing and Buffering
    • 4.2.1 Shared Memory Approach
    • 4.2.2 Shared Medium Approach
    • 4.2.3 Fully Interconnected Approach
    • 4.2.4 Space Division Approach
      • 4.2.4.1 Banyan Networks
        • 4.2.4.1.1 Delta Networks
        • 4.2.4.1.2 Blocking and Buffering
      • 4.2.4.2 Multiple-Path Multistage Interconnection Networks (MINs)
• 5. Switch Design Principles
  • 5.1 Internal Blocking
  • 5.2 Buffering Approaches
    • 5.2.1 Input Queuing
    • 5.2.2 Output Queuing
    • 5.2.3 Internal Queuing
    • 5.2.4 Recirculating Buffers
  • 5.3 Buffer Sharing
  • 5.4 Scalability of Switch Fabrics
  • 5.5 Multicasting
    • 5.5.1 Shared Medium and Fully Interconnected Output-Buffered Approaches
    • 5.5.2 Shared Memory Approach
    • 5.5.3 Space Division Fabrics
      • 5.5.3.1 Crossbar Switches
      • 5.5.3.2 Broadcast Banyan Networks
      • 5.5.3.3 Copy Networks
  • 5.6 Fault Tolerance
  • 5.7 Using Priorities in Buffer Management
    • 5.7.1 Preliminaries
    • 5.7.2 Cell Scheduling
    • 5.7.3 Cell Discarding
    • 5.7.4 Congestion Indications
• 6. Summary
• 7. Annotated Bibliography

Shift-click to download the report in Adobe Acrobat format (109,044 Bytes)