Modeling multicasting in shared-memory ATM switches

The importance of multicasting at the switch level is increasing with the number of applications that are demanding multicast services. We extend a fluid-flow model for unicast only shared-memory switches to include replicate-at-receive multicasting. The advantage of fluid-flow models is that they are buffer independent. This overcomes the state explosion problem experienced with Markov chain models when using large sized buffers. Our proposed model reduces the complexity of the switch so that the problem only requires the analysis of a single output queue. Under various input traffic conditions the performance of the model is compared against results obtained via simulation. With shorter computational time the proposed model produces results comparable to those from simulation