Continuous multicasting on statically-allocated VC-based switches in high-bandwidth networks

We analytically model continuous multicasting to uniformly-distributed destinations on statically-allocated VC-based switches. Our models compare favorably with simulations. The results indicate that a higher number of virtual circuits improves switch throughput, especially for unicasting. For multicasting, the improvement only occurs at small packet arrival rates, while at higher rates there is throughput saturation due to packet scheduling conflicts. Maximum possible throughput can be achieved by a broadcasting switch, at the expense of much higher switch latency. We also show that the more complex cut-through switch model does not achieve better performance for multicasting switches