Interconnecting multiple input and output LAN-s over a high speed gateway

The problem of controlling and configuring the high-speed interconnection of multiple-input and multiple-output LANs (local area networks) is studied. An optimal method for controlling traffic flow to minimize packet loss, given a finite buffer space at each LAN, is derived. It is shown that the optimal buffer allocation among the input and the output buffers depends on the relative number of the interconnected input and output LANs. A new approximate analytic model is provided which is shown to be tractable while introducing only small errors. In terms of loss probability, it was found that the optimal gateway control is one that always delays packet transfer from the input queues to the output queues until the last moment, similarly to a single-output LAN interconnection system. However, as opposed to single LAN systems, given a fixed number of buffers, the optimal buffer allocation is to divide buffers between the input and the output queues