MMR: A MultiMedia Router architecture to support hybrid workloads

During the past few years, multimedia traffic with quality of service (QoS) requirements has become of widespread use. Media servers are usually built as clusters of workstations connected by a high-performance interconnection network. However, these high-performance networks do not usually offer differentiated support for multimedia traffic. The MultiMedia Router (MMR) is a proposal to address the QoS issue in cluster networks within a compact architecture, while also integrating conventional best-effort traffic. This paper describes the main architectural features of the MMR, such as the use of a hybrid switching technique, credit-based flow control, or small input buffers. Also, the main design parameters are tuned by means of simulation. It can be seen how proper differentiation among the different traffic classes is achieved, while retaining a compact design with small buffers.