(A) study on fault-tolerant routing in interconnection networks

Abstract

Fault-tolerant routing algorithms in interconnection networks are studied in this thesis. Interconnection networks are used in various areas including multicomputer systems and internal networks for ATM switching systems. A multicomputer with a large number of processing nodes is one of the most promising means to meet the increasing demand of computational power. These nodes communicate with each other by passing messages over an interconnection network. In order to exploit parallelism at smaller granularities, the network size in a multicomputer has increasingly grown. Low-dimensional mesh networks are popularly used in multicomputers, since they offer good scalability. Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) was chosen as a standard transmission and switching technology for broadband integrated services digital network (B-ISDN). The internal networks for ATM switches should provide high-speed connection and large-scalability to support broadband services. Multistage interconnection networks (MINs) are widely used in ATM switches as well as multicomputers because of their self-routing capability and regular structure. As the size of interconnection networks increases, the probability that their components fail also increases. The network failure causes the incorrect operation and the degradation of performance in the system. Fault-tolerance in networks is one of the important factors in the design and implementation of the systems using the networks. Fault-tolerant routing aims at achieving fault-tolerance in the network without the need for hardware reconfiguration. Fault-tolerant routing schemes in mesh networks have been proposed by several researchers. These schemes restrict the number or pattern of faults. Most of their routing algorithms assumed that the fault region should be shaped as a rectangular block. Boppana and Chalasani have presented the algorithm to tolerate more general fault shape, called a solid fault region that covers some non-convex fault shap...