A First Approach to Provide QoS in Advanced Switching∗

Nowadays, the use of multimedia applications that present QoS requirements is increasing rapidly. Advanced Switching (AS) is a new interconnection network technology that expands the capabilities of PCI Express. AS provides mechanisms that can be used to support QoS. Specifically, an AS fabric permits us to employ virtual channels, egress link scheduling, and an admission control mechanism to differentiate between traffic flows. In this paper we examine these mechanisms and show how to provide QoS based on bandwidth and latency requirements. Furthermore, a new algorithm, Weighted Fair Queuing Credit Aware, is proposed as a specific implementation of one of the schedulers suggested by the AS specification.