Scalable and Practical Nonblocking Switching Networks

Large-scale strictly nonblocking (SNB) and wide-sense nonblocking(WSNB) networks may be infeasible due to their highcost. In contrast, rearrangeable nonblocking (RNB) networks aremore scalable because of their much lower cost. However, RNBnetworks are not suitable for circuit switching. In this paper,the concept of virtual nonblockingness is introduced. It is shown that avirtual nonblocking (VNB) network functions like an SNB or WSNBnetwork, but it is constructed with the cost of an RNB network.The results indicate that for large-scale circuit switchingapplications, it is only needed to build VNB networks.