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smklein

"Virtual Channel Flow Control" is actually a fairly simple concept, of splitting up different packets by their output destination.

As a metaphor, think about airports. At terminals, there are separate lines to board each plane. This is an example of "virtual channel flow control" -- the passengers are organized by their destination. Imagine if there was a SINGLE line at the airport to board all the planes, and no one could change order in line. That would drastically reduce efficiency!

yrkumar

I like @smklein's example. Another metaphor for virtual channel flow control is the turn-specific lane on roads. Lanes are sometimes designated as "turn-only" to avoid the bottleneck that would result from putting all vehicles in the same lane. This way, vehicles that are turning can avoid waiting for cars that are going straight and vice versa.

tcz

Without turn-only lanes, you get things like the Pittsburgh left.