In this paper we study randomized algorithms for circuit switching on multistage networks related to the butterfly. We devise algorithms that route messages by constructing circuits (or paths) for the messages with small congestion, dilation, and setup time. Our algorithms are based on the idea of having each message choose a route from two possibilities, a technique that has previously proven successful in simpler load balancing settings. As an application of our techniques, we propose a novel design for a data server.

It is well known that after placing m n balls independently and uniformly at random (i.u.r.) into n bins, the fullest bin contains \\Theta(log n= log log n+ m n ) balls, with high probability. It is also known (see [Ste96]) that a maximum load of O \\Gamma m n \\Delta can be obtained for all m n if a ball is allocated in one (suitably chosen) of two (i.u.r.) bins. Stemann ([Ste96]) shows that r communication rounds suffice to guarantee a maximum load of maxf r p log n; O \\Gamma m n \\Delta g, with high probability. Adler et al. have shown in [ACMR95] that Stemanns protocol is optimal for constant r. In this paper we extend the above results in two directions: We generalize the lower bound to arbitrary r log log n. This implies that the result of Stemanns protocol is optimal for all r. Our main result is a generalization of Stemanns upper bound to weighted jobs: Let W A (W M ) denote the average (maximum) weight of the balls. Further let \\Delta = W A =W M . Note that...