On the maximal throughput of networks with finite buffers and its application to buffered crossbars

— The advent of packet networks has motivated many researchers to study the performance of networks of queues in the last decade or two. However, most of the previous work assumes the availability of infinite queue-size. Instead, in this paper, we study the maximal achievable throughput in a flow-controlled lossless network with finite-queue size. In such networks, throughput depends on the packet scheduling policy utilized. As the main of this paper, we obtain a dynamic scheduling policy that achieves the maximal throughput (equal to the maximal throughput in the presence of infinite queuesize) with a minimal finite queue-size at the internal nodes of the network. Though the performance of the policy is ideal, it is quite complex and hence difficult to implement. This leads us to a design of simpler and possibly implementable policy. We obtain a natural trade-off between throughput and queue-size for this policy. We apply our results to the packet switches with buffered crossb...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: INFOCOM
• Authors: Paolo Giaccone, Emilio Leonardi, Devavrat Shah
• Keywords: Communications, INFOCOM 2005, Maximal Throughput, Scheduling Policy, Throughput