DBR: A Simple, Fast and Efficient Dynamic Network Reconfiguration Mechanism Based on Deadlock Recovery Scheme

Dynamic network reconfiguration is described as the process of replacing one routing function with another while the network keeps running. The main challenge is avoiding deadlock anomalies while keeping limitations on message injection and forwarding minimal. Current approaches, whose complexity is so high that their practical applicability is limited, either require the existence of extra network resources like virtual channels, or they affect the performance of the network during the reconfiguration process. In this paper we present a simple, fast and efficient mechanism for dynamic network reconfiguration which is based on regressive deadlock recoveries instead of avoiding deadlocks. The mechanism which is referred to as DBR guarantees a deadlock-free reconfiguration based on wormhole switching (WS) and it does not require additional resources. In this approach, the need for a reliable message transmission has led to a modified WS mechanism which includes additional flits or control signals. DBR allows cycles to be formed and in such conditions when a deadlock occurs, the messages suffer from time-out. Then, this method releases the buffers and channels from the current node and thus the source retransmits the message after a random time gap. Evaluating results reveal that the mechanism shows substantial performance improvements over the other methods and it works efficiently in different topologies with various routing algorithms.