Ivan Marsic Rutgers University 234

Time
First bit received

Reception delay = t xI

Fwd decision Last bit received

Input port queuing delay
Forwarding decision delay = tf
Fabric traversal
queuing delay

Switch fabric Switch fabric traversal delay = ts

Transmission
queuing delay
First bit transmitted
Output port
Transmission delay = t xO

Last bit transmitted

Figure 4-13: Components of delay in data packet forwarding.

Yet another reason for queuing occurs when an outgoing road cannot support the incoming traffic
and the corresponding intersection exit becomes congested. In this case, even if an incoming car
does not experience head-of-line blocking and it has a GO signal, it still bust wait because the exit
is congested. The corresponding queuing occurs in a router when the outgoing communication
line has insufficient capacity to support incoming packet traffic. The queuing may occur at the
input port (input queuing), in the switch fabric (internal queuing), or at the output port (output
queuing).
Figure 4-13 summarizes the datapath delays in a router. Some of these delays may be negligible,
depending on the switch design. As already noted, queuing may also occur in the switch fabric
(internal queuing), which is not shown in Figure 4-13.

Input Queuing
In switches with pure input queuing (or, input buffering), packets are stored at the input ports and
released when they win access to both the switching fabric and the output line. An arbiter decides
the timetable for accessing the fabric depending on the status of the fabric and the output lines
(Figure 4-14). Because the packets leaving the input queues are guaranteed access to the fabric
and the output line, there is no need for an output queue.
The key advantage of input queuing is that links in the switching fabric (and the input queues
themselves) need to run at the speed of the input communication lines. For a router with N input
ports and N output ports, only the arbiter needs to run N times faster than the input lines.