Reviewer: Max Podlesny
Date: 10-6-2005
How would you rate this paper, relative to others we have read? top 25%, but not top 10%
How would you rate your knowledge of the topic of this paper? familiar, but not expert
What problem or issue does the paper address? Why is it important?
In the paper there is a description and analysis of the Distributed Shared Mamory router. Understanding of shared memory architecture is important for designing routers with maximized throughput.
What are the main contributions of the paper and why are they important?
The main contribution of the paper is of designing a model called Single-Buffered routers that covers routers with centralized shared memory. The model could allow to find out how to emulate a shared memory router.
How significant are these contributions relative to previous work?
Authors have made the model of shared memory routers and have analyzed their properties.
Give detailed comments justifying your view of the paper.
The topic considered in the paper looks very interesting. The paper is mainly a theoretical one, and that fact put some features into the structure of the paper. But there are some drawbacks in the structure. In my opinion, the structure looks a little bit confused. No mention was made about the future work as well as no emphasize was made on what the contibution of the paper was. Authors have shown some problems for which they did not find answers, but the solutions for which is a very good motivation for future work. In the end, I did not find any serious drawback in the paper. I would like to say that authors have made a lot of work in developing a theory of shared memory routers. I think that continuation of that work in the direction of practical usage could give very good results in terms of developing routers with high throughput.