Presentation by Guest Speakers, Dr. Ken Christensen

Ph.D. Program at SFU

Open Problems in High-Speed Switching for Computer Network

High-speed networks, such as the core of the Internet, use packet switches to route packets from a source to destination.  The architecture of these packet switches is the subject of much current research.  This short talk will trace the evolution of packet switches from simple shared-memory, processor-driven architectures to modern input-buffered architectures with specialized hardware for packet classification and forwarding.  Recent work in developing and evaluating scheduling algorithms for “virtual output queued” (VOQ) input buffered switches will be described.  Existing methods for VOQ scheduling can deliver very high-throughputs.  However, problems remain in how to best natively support variable length packets and how to guarantee throughput and bounded delay for real-time traffic streams.  The use of buffering within a switch crossbar is being explored as a means of solving these problems.