Existing topologies, such as the MSN, HR/sup 4/-NET, and a three-level hierarchical structure, for metropolitan area network (MAN) implementation are studied. A topology is proposed, based on the HR/sup 4/-NET and a hierarchical model, that is highly scalable to extend over large areas. Routing algorithms proposed make the architecture fail safe. The new architecture effectively decreases the number of hops in large networks leading to an effective real-time communication. Performance analysis shows that the proposed architecture is an efficient system compared to any of the existing systems.
['Venu M. Padakanti', 'Sarat Kakumanu']
A multi-level hierarchical distributed fail-safe architecture for metropolitan area networks