Delay analysis of a circuit-switched interconnection network with non-uniform traffic

The authors analyze a circuit-switched, blocking, multi-stage interconnection network (MIN) with arbitrary independent input distributions and arbitrary switch routing probabilities. The network uses a gated-hold strategy which retains partial path information. By formulating a dominant system, they derive a recursive expression for the mean time to process a batch of requests given a particular input distribution and a set of switch routing probabilities. This system is compared to a simulation of a non-blocking switch implementing a similar gated strategy. Results indicate that this method yields tight bounds for small networks with arbitrary input distributions and switch routing probabilities. For networks with uniform input and output distributions this bound is closer than one introduced in a previous work examining the same protocol