Cost Efficient Implementation of Multistage Symmetric Repackable Networks

Symmetric rearrangeable networks (SRN) (Chakrabarty, Collier, & Mukhopadhyay, 2009) make efficient use of hardware, but they have the disadvantage of momentarily disrupting the existing communications during reconfiguration. Path continuity is a major issue in some application of rearrangeable networks. Using repackable networks (Yanga, Su, & Pin, 2008) is a solution to the path continuity problem in SRN. These networks provide functionality comparable to that of strict sense no blocking networks (SNB) but with minimum increase in the hardware than SRN. This paper proposes an efficient implementation of multistage symmetric repackable networks requiring optimum hardware cost than the method proposed in the literature. Cost optimization is achieved through the use of minimum number of bypass link(s). Investigated method works for networks built with more than three switching stages and shows promise of scalability. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-2065-0.ch016