A Markov chain model for replicate-at-send multicasting in shared-memory ATM switches

Abstract

Replicate-At-Send multicasting has the best performance of the multicasting schemes for shared-memory ATM switches. Specifically Replicate-At-Send -distinct address queue multicasting is the most adopted implementation because of its low hardware requirements. In this paper we present an analytical model for shared-memory switches with Replicate-AtSend -distinct address queue multicasting. Under various input traffic conditions the analytical model is shown to be accurate when compared to simulation results. We demonstrate that the model is accurate for a range of loads, with different ratios of multicast traffic and for a range of fanout sizes.