Fibre-ribbon pipeline ring network with distributed global deadline scheduling and deterministic user services

This paper introduces a novel, fair medium access protocol for a pipelined optical ring network. The protocol provides global deadline scheduling of packets. Requests for sending packets are sent by the nodes in the network to a master node. The master uses the deadline information in the requests to determine which packet is most urgent. Arbitration is done in two steps, the collection and distribution phases. The protocol is therefore called two-cycle medium access (TCMA). The network is best suited for LANs and SANs (system area networks) such as a high speed network in a cluster of computers or in an embedded parallel computer. Offered services in this network include best effort messages, guarantee seeking messages, real-time virtual channels, functions used in parallel processing. These are possible without additional higher level protocols. A simulation analysis of the network with the protocol is presented. Further analysis shows minimum slot length and fairness of the protocol.