Experimental evaluation of a coarse-grained switch scheduler

Modern high performance routers rely on sophisticated interconnection networks to meet ever increasing demands on capacity. Previous studies have used a combination of analysis and idealized simulations to show that coarse-grained scheduling of traffic flows can be effective in preventing interconnect congestion while ensuring high utilization. In this work, we study the performance of a coarse-grained scheduler in a real router with a scalable architecture similar to those found in high performance commercial systems. Our results are obtained by taking fine-grained measurements within the router that provide a detailed picture of the scheduler's behavior under a variety of conditions, giving a more complete and realistic understanding of the short time-scale dynamics than previous studies could provide. Categories and Subject Descriptors. C.2.1 [Computer-Communications Networks]: Network Architecture and Design

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: ANCS
• Authors: Charlie Wiseman, Jonathan S. Turner, Ken Wong, Brandon Heller
• Keywords: ANCS 2007, Coarse-grained Scheduler, Coarse-grained Scheduling, Computer Networks, Sophisticated Interconnection Networks