A new distributed management mechanism for ASI based networks

Advanced Switching Interconnect (ASI) is a high-speed serial interconnect embodied in the Dolphin Express family of interconnect products. In order to support high availability, the ASI specification established a management infrastructure, which is in charge of maintaining network operation after the occurrence of a topological change. When such a change occurs, the management mechanism discovers the new topology, calculates a set of valid routing paths, and distributes them to endpoints within the fabric. Several implementations for such a management mechanism have been proposed that use a centralized approach. These solutions can have negative effects with respect to network service availability. With the aim of eliminating these potential negative effects, this paper proposes a distributed solution for the computation of new paths. The distributed solution is evaluated for management entities with different performance capabilities, and for a range of traffic patterns and load levels. Our results show that the new distributed solution significantly reduces the change assimilation time and the negative impact on the network service when it is compared to a centralized solution.