Statistical performance guarantees in large-scale cross-path packet switch

Recently, a quasi-static routing scheme called path switching was proposed for large-scale packet switch systems. The path-switched Clos network is called a cross-path switch. The cross-path switch is capable of supporting multirate and multicast traffic. In this paper, we develop a general framework for it to handle multimedia traffic. We study the statistical behavior of the cross-path switch using exponential bounded burstiness (EBB) processes as source session traffic models. With characterizing the service guarantees by service curves, we derive a set of statistical bounds on the delay, backlog and departure processes at the switch on a per-session basis. These bounds are necessary for providing per-session statistical quality of service (QoS) guarantees in the cross-path switch and achieving high system utilization.