Abstract
Multistage Bus Network (MBN) is a new interconnection network which consists of several stages of buses with multiple buses at each stage. MBN preserves the bandwidth properties of a conventional Multistage Interconnection Network (MIN) and retains the economic design and fast broadcast advantages of the bus based systems. In this thesis performance analysis of MBN in loosely coupled system is presented. The network operates in a synchronous, decentralized packet-switched mode and has infinite buffers at each queueing center. System response time and processor utilization are considered as the measures of the performance. It is concluded that the performance of an MBN is better than the performance of a MIN when cluster requests are treated differently than non-cluster requests. However the performance of an MBN is very close to the performance of a MIN when cluster requests are not treated differently. Our results are supported by simulation. Various routing techniques through an MBN are then introduced. Fault tolerance and reliability of an MBN are evaluated using redundancy graphs. It is revealed that MBN in loosely coupled system can totally retain its connection capability in the presence of fault in any single component (i.e. switch, link etc.). MBN always allows an alternate path to be chosen if conflicts arise with other connections or if faults develop in the network. Thus, MBN provides both better fault-tolerance and higher reliability than unique-path interconnection networks.
Askar, Tahsin (1993). Performance and reliability of Multistage Bus Network. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /ETD -TAMU -1993 -THESIS -A834.