HIGH-SPEED PACKET SWITCHING

THE PURPOSE OF THE PHASE II SBIR RESEARCH EFFORT IS TO IM- PLEMENT AN INTERNET ROUTER CAPABLE OF SWITCHING PACKETS AT RATES WHICH ARE CONSISTENT WITH HIGH-PERFORMANCE LOCAL AREA NETWORKS (LAN), AND WIDE AREA NETWORKS (WAN) WHICH WILL BE IN SERVICE IN THE EARLY 1990'S. THE PHASE I SBIR RESEARCH EXPLORED THE CHARACTER OF LAN AND WAN TRAFFIC TO BE EXPECTED IN THE EARLY 90'S. EXISTING LAN HARDWARE SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURES WERE INVESTIGATED IN DETAIL TO DETERMINE WHERE BOTTLENECK AND PERFORMANCE LIMITATIONS EXISTS. NEXT, THE ADDED PERFORMANCE EXPECTED FROM NEW TECH-NOLOGY SUCH AS HIGH-SPEED RISC MICROPROCESSING WAS EVALUATEDBY PORTING CRITICAL SECTIONS OF ROUTER CODE TO THESE DEVICESPOSSIBLE SOFTWARE MODIFICATIONS WERE ALSO ANALYZED FOR THEIRPOTNTIAL EFFECT ON PERFORMANCE. THE RESULTS OF THE PHASE I EFFORT ARE EMBODIED IN A HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE METHODOLOGY FOR IMPLEMENTING A PACKET SWITCH WHICH CAN ACHIEVE PERFOR- MANCE IN EXCESS OF 25K PACKETS/SECOND AND 300 MBIT/SECOND PHASE II IS THE EFFORT REQUIRED TO IMPLEMENT THE DESIGN GEN-ERATED UNDER PHASE I. A SEQUENCE OF DEVELOPMENTS IS PRO- POSED WHICH ARE DESIGNED TO MINMIZE DEVELOPMENT RISKS. THE RESULTING HIGH-SPEED PACKET SWITCH WILL HAVE WIDE APPLICA- BILITY THROUGH NASA FACILITIES, AND OTHER GOVERNMENT INSTI- TUTIONS. IT IS ANTICIPATED THAT HIGH-PERFORMANCE NETWORKS SUCH AS THE 100MB/SECOND FDDI SYSTEM AND HIGH-SPEED WIDE NETWORK SERVICES SUCH AS THE 45 MB/SEC DS3 WILL BE WIDELY USED. THE HIGH-SPEED PACKET SWITCH PROPOSED HERE WILL SERVE THE VITAL FUNCTION OF INTERCONNECTING THESE NETWORKS.