A GENERAL PACKET REPLICATION SCHEME FOR MULTICASTING WITH APPLICATIONTO SHUFFLE-EXCHANGE NETWORKS

Multicasting in broadband packet switches and metropolitan networks ca n be achieved by first replicating the packets and then routing them t o their destinations, This paper studies a simple but general replicat ion scheme that can be applied to arbitrary interconnection-network to pologies, The replication process of a packet adapts itself according to the network topology and the traffic condition, Hot spots of replic ation activities are diffused by this scheme which automatically migra tes the replication efforts to less active network regions, The scheme can potentially be used in networks (e.g., the Manhattan-street netwo rk) in which multicasting was thought to be inherently difficult, This paper, however, focuses on the shuffle-exchange copy network for a de tailed study of the replication algorithm and its implementation at th e logic-diagram level. It is found that the performance of the algorit hm improves with the increase in network dimensions, Cascading the cop y network with a point-to-point switch makes a multicast switch, A nov el strategy for reducing the memory size of its routing tables is prop osed.