Grooming of dynamic traffic in WDM star and tree networks using a genetic algorithm

The advances in WDM technology lead to the great interest in traffic grooming problems. As traffic often changes from time to time, the problem of grooming dynamic traffic is of great practical value. In this article, we discuss the dynamic grooming of traffic in star and tree networks. A genetic algorithm (GA) based approach is proposed to support arbitrary dynamic traffic patterns, which minimizes the number of ADMs and wavelengths. To evaluate the algorithm, tighter bounds are derived. Computer simulation results show that our algorithm is efficient in reducing both the number of ADMs and wavelengths in tree and star networks.     

An effective and comprehensive approach for traffic grooming andwavelength assignment in SONET/WDM rings

In high-speed SONET rings with point-to-point WDM links, the cost of SONET add-drop multiplexers (S-ADMs) can be dominantly high. However, by grooming traffic (i.e., multiplexing lower-rate streams) appropriately and using wavelength ADMs (WADMs), the number of S-ADMs can be dramatically reduced. In this paper, we propose optimal or near-optimal algorithms for traffic grooming and wavelength assignment to reduce both the number of wavelengths and the number of S-ADMs. The algorithms proposed are generic in that they can be applied to both unidirectional and bidirectional rings having an arbitrary number of nodes under both uniform and nonuniform (i.e., arbitrary) traffic with an arbitrary grooming factor. Some lower bounds on the number of wavelengths and S-ADMs required for a given traffic pattern are derived, and used to determine the optimality of the proposed algorithms. Our study shows that using the proposed algorithms, these lower bounds can he closely approached in most cases or even achieved in some cases. In addition, even when using a minimum number of wavelengths, the savings in S-ADMs due to traffic grooming (and the use of WADMs) are significant, especially for large networks     

Combining GA with Splitting Methods for Rearrangeably Nonblocking Grooming of Dynamic Traffic in SONET Ring Networks

SONET/WDM rings are widely deployed in today’s networks. To reduce the total cost of such a network, an efficient way is using the traffic grooming technique to minimize the number of add/drop multiplexers (ADMs) on the ring. Since traffic often changes frequently, the problem of supporting dynamic traffic patterns with minimum number of ADMs and wavelengths becomes incresingly important, which is referred to as grooming of dynamic traffic. In this paper, we will deal with rearrangeably nonblocking grooming of arbitrary dynamic traffic in such ring networks. We will discuss in detail the benefit of splitting methods to such a grooming way and apply them to this kind of grooming. A novel genetic algorithm (GA) approach with a hierarchical chromosome structure for each individual is proposed in combination with splitting methods to address such grooming problems. Computer simulation results under different conditions show that our algorithm is efficient in reducing both the numbers of ADMs and wavelengths.     

Reducing electronic multiplexing costs in SONET/WDM rings with dynamically changing traffic

In this paper, we consider traffic grooming in WDM/SONET ring networks when the offered traffic is characterized by a set of traffic matrices. Our objective is to minimize the cost of electronic add/drop multiplexers (ADMs) in the network, while being able to support any offered traffic matrix in a rearrangeably nonblocking manner. We provide several methods for reducing the required number of ADMs for an arbitrary class of traffic matrices. We then consider the special case where the only restriction on the offered traffic is a constraint on the number of circuits a node may source at any given time. For this case, we provide a lower bound on the number of ADMs required and give conditions that a network must satisfy in order for it to support the desired set of traffic patterns. Circuit assignment and ADM placement algorithms with performance close to this lower bound are provided. These algorithms are shown to reduce the electronic costs of a network by up to 27%. Finally, we discuss extensions of this work for supporting dynamic traffic in a wide-sense or strict sense nonblocking manner as well as the benefits of using a hub node and tunable transceivers. Much of this work relies on showing that these grooming problems can often be formulated as standard combinatorial optimization problems.     

The role of switching in reducing the number of electronic ports in WDM networks

We consider the role of switching in minimizing the number of electronic ports [e.g., synchronous optical network (SONET) add/drop multiplexers] in an optical network that carries subwavelength traffic. Providing nodes with the ability to switch traffic between wavelengths, such as through the use of SONET cross-connects, can reduce the required number of electronic ports. We show that only limited switching ability is needed for significant reductions in the number of ports. First, we consider architectures where certain "hub" nodes can switch traffic between wavelengths and other nodes have no switching capability. For such architectures, we provide a lower bound on the number of electronic ports that is a function of the number of hub nodes. We show that our lower bound is relatively tight by providing routing and grooming algorithms that nearly achieve the bound. For uniform traffic, we show that the number of electronic ports is nearly minimized when the number of hub nodes used is equal to the number of wavelengths of traffic generated by each node. Next, we consider architectures where the switching ability is distributed throughout the network. Such architectures are shown to require a similar number of ports as the hub architectures, but with a significantly smaller "switching cost." We give an algorithm for designing such architectures and characterize a class of topologies, where the minimum number of ports is used. Finally, we provide a general upper bound on the amount of switching required in the network. For uniform traffic, our bound shows that as the size of the network increases, each traffic stream must be switched at most once in order to achieve the minimum port count.     

Traffic grooming in WDM ring networks to minimize the maximum electronic port cost

We consider the problem of traffic grooming in WDM ring networks. Traffic grooming is a variant of the well-known logical topology design problem, and is concerned with the development of techniques for combining low speed traffic components onto high speed channels in order to minimize network cost. Previous studies have focused on aggregate representations of the network cost. In this work, we consider a Min-Max objective, in which it is desirable to minimize the cost at the node where this cost is maximum. Such an objective is of high practical value when dimensioning a network for unknown future traffic demands and/or for dynamic traffic scenarios. We present new theoretical results which demonstrate that traffic grooming with the Min-Max objective is NP-complete even when wavelength assignment is not an issue. We also present new polynomial-time traffic grooming algorithms for minimizing the maximum electronic port cost in both unidirectional and bidirectional rings. We evaluate our algorithms through experiments with a wide range of problem instances, by varying the network size, number of wavelengths, traffic load, and traffic pattern. Our results indicate that our algorithms produce solutions which are always close to the optimal and/or the lower bound, and which scale well to large network sizes, large number of wavelengths, and high loads. We also demonstrate that, despite the focus on minimizing the maximum cost, our algorithms also perform well in terms of the aggregate electronic port cost over all ring nodes.     

A heuristic solution to SONET ADM minimization for static traffic grooming in WDM uni-directional ring networks

In recent years, minimization of add-drop multiplexers (ADMs) in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical networks has gained lots of attention in both the research and commercial areas. This motivates the research presented in this paper. A heuristic algorithm is formulated for static traffic grooming in WDM uni-directional ring networks with an eye to minimize the number of required ADMs. The distinguished feature of the proposed heuristic is that it pairs up the calls of a given static traffic to approach the solution. The proposed heuristic is compared with the previous approach with same network configuration and traffic matrix to establish its effectiveness.     

Lower bound on number of ADMs in WDM rings with nonuniform traffic demands

A new and tight lower bound on the number of ADMs with arbitrary nonuniform traffic demands in a SONET/WDM ring network is derived. Simulations show that this lower bound is much tighter than the previous one and for some cases it reaches the infimum.     

Traffic grooming algorithms for reducing electronic multiplexingcosts in WDM ring networks

We develop traffic grooming algorithms for unidirectional SONET/WDM ring networks. The objective is to assign calls to wavelengths in a way that minimizes the total cost of electronic equipment [e.g., the number of SONET add/drop multiplexers (ADM's)]. We show that the general traffic grooming problem is NP-complete. However, for some special cases we obtain algorithms that result in a significant reduction in the number of ADM's. When the traffic from all nodes is destined to a single node, and all traffic rates are the same, we obtain a solution that minimizes the number of ADM's. In the more general case of all-to-all uniform frame we obtain a lower bound on the number of ADM's required, and provide a heuristic algorithm that performs closely to that bound. To account for more realistic traffic scenarios, we also consider distance dependent traffic, where the traffic load between two nodes is inversely proportional to the distance between them, and again provide a nearly optimal heuristic algorithm that results in substantial ADM savings. Finally, we consider the use of a hub node, where traffic can be switched between different wavelength, and obtain an optimal algorithm which minimizes the number of ADM's by efficiently multiplexing and switching the traffic at the hub. Moreover, we show that any solution not using a hub can be transformed into a solution with a hub using fewer or the same number of ADM's     

Logical topology design for linear and ring optical networks

The design of logical topologies in wavelength-routing multihop optical networks is a well-studied problem. We consider logical topology (LT) design over the popular ring and linear topologies. Our objective is the minimization of the electronic processing delay for the worst case traffic flow. For uniform traffic between nodes, this delay minimization corresponds to minimizing the number of hops on a shortest path between the farthest two nodes in the logical topology (the diameter of the logical topology). The simple structure of the physical topologies enables us to present a rigorous analysis of the problem. We present lower bounds for the achievable diameter wherever possible and propose practical logical topology design algorithms and corresponding upper bounds. We also present an application of the LT designs in the linear topology to the survivability of ring networks     

业务疏导技术在WDM网络及OPS网络中的应用

在波分复用(WDM)光网络中,可使用业务疏导(Traffic Grooming)技术来提高网络性能,降低网络成本.详细阐述了WDM光网络中业务疏导的基本概念及主要目标,并对国内外研究现状进行了总结.最后介绍了OPS光交换网络中使用的业务疏导技术.     

Design and Performance Evaluation of Traffic Grooming Algorithms in WDM Multi-Ring Networks

In this paper, we propose novel traffic grooming algorithms to reduce the cost of the entire system in WDM multi-ring networks. In order to achieve this goal, it is important to construct a virtual topology and groom the traffic in these networks. We consider four kinds of virtual topologies of WDM multi-ring networks according to the way in which traffic is transmitted among rings. Accordingly, we design four kinds of traffic grooming (TG) algorithms depending on the considered virtual topologies: mixed (MTG), partially mixed (PMTG), separate (STG), and independent (ITG) traffic grooming algorithms. Each algorithm consists of a separation, a connection-ring construction, and a grooming procedure. In the separation procedure, all traffic connections are classified into intra and inter-connections. The connection-ring construction procedure makes full connection-rings from traffic connections. The grooming procedure groups connection-rings onto a wavelength in order to reduce the number of SONET add/drop multiplexers (SADMs) and wavelengths and to improve the utilization of network resources. To analyze the performance of each algorithm, a circular multi-ring architecture with uniform traffic is considered. The simulation results show that ITG and PMTG are more efficient in terms of wavelengths. STG and PMTG require a smaller number of SADMs.     

Improved Approaches for Cost-Effective Traffic Grooming in WDM Ring Networks: Uniform-Traffic Case*

To fully utilize the capabilities of a SONET/ADM network, traffic grooming is needed to multiplex a number of lower-rate traffic streams into a higher-rate stream, and vice versa. Although the capacity of a SONET ring network can be upgraded by operating it over multiple wavelengths, the corresponding network design may be costly if it employs a large number of ADMs. A cost-effective design attempts to minimize the total number of ADMs used in the network while carrying the offered traffic. We introduce and evaluate the performance characteristics of two new traffic-grooming approaches for WDM ring networks, called single-hop and multihop. Our single-hop implementation uses the simulated-annealing heuristic. After placing all the traffic on virtual circles, we group the circles in order to reduce the number of ADMs in the network. Our multihop implementation places an ADM at each node based on the requested traffic in the traffic-demand matrix; then, it tries to groom the wavelengths which can be groomed. We select one of the nodes to be the hub node which has an ADM for each wavelength. The hub node, therefore, can bridge traffic between all of the wavelengths. Each algorithm is specified and illustrated by a simple example. Our results demonstrate that it is beneficial to use a single-hop approach based on simulated annealing for a small grooming ratio, but for a large grooming ratio and node number, we advocate the use of the multihop approach.     

Traffic grooming in an optical WDM mesh network

In wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) optical networks, the bandwidth request of a traffic stream can be much lower than the capacity of a lightpath. Efficiently grooming low-speed connections onto high-capacity lightpaths will improve the network throughput and reduce the network cost. In WDM/SONET ring networks, it has been shown in the optical network literature that by carefully grooming the low-speed connection and using wavelength-division multiplexer (OADM) to perform the optical bypass at intermediate nodes, electronic ADMs can be saved and network cost will be reduced. In this study, we investigate the traffic-grooming problem in a WDM-based optical mesh topology network. Our objective is to improve the network throughput. We study the node architecture for a WDM mesh network with traffic-grooming capability. A mathematical formulation of the traffic-grooming problem is presented in this study and several fast heuristics are also proposed and evaluated     

WDM光网络中的业务量疏导

波分复用（WDM）技术在主干传送网中巳广泛应用，WDM光网络的研究进展也非常迅速，光网络中的业务量疏导定义为复用、解复用和交换低速率业务流到大容量的光路中的行为。介绍了WDM光网络的业务量疏导的重要性，研究方法及其最新研究进展情况。     

Effective wavelength assignment algorithms for optimizing designcosts in SONET/WDM rings

In high-speed wavelength-division-multiplexed synchronous optical network (SONET) ring networks, the terminal equipment costs associated with electronic multiplexing can be predominantly high. Placing a wavelength add-drop multiplexer (WADM) at each network node allows certain wavelengths to optically bypass the node without being electronically terminated. This approach can effectively reduce the total equipment cost if connections and channels are appropriately assigned in traffic grooming. In this paper, we present a series of wavelength optimization and wavelength assignment algorithms with the objective to optimize the number of required SONET add-drop multiplexers and yet minimizes the number of wavelengths in both unidirectional and bidirectional rings under an arbitrary grooming factor. In our analysis, we have considered both uniform and general nonuniform all-to-all network traffic. As a simple model for realistic traffic patterns, a special case of nonuniform traffic, distance-dependent traffic, is analyzed in detail. Significant ADM savings are observed for different traffic scenarios using our proposed algorithms     

An isochronous and asynchronous traffic scheduling algorithm fordual-star WDM networks

In this paper, based on the concept of wavelength reusing, a new architecture for interconnecting two wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) star networks is proposed. According to this architecture, the problem of scheduling isochronous as well as asynchronous traffic is investigated. The lower bounds for the problem of minimizing the switching duration and the number of switching modes are derived. A transmission scheduling algorithm for the proposed architecture to efficiently reuse the wavelength is also proposed. For only asynchronous traffic, the analytical result shows that the proposed scheduling algorithm produces solutions equal to the lower bounds. For both isochronous and asynchronous traffic, simulation results show that the average switching duration and the average number of switching modes obtained by the proposed algorithm are quite close to the lower bounds. Simulation results also show that given the same number of users and available wavelengths, the solutions (in terms of the average switching duration and the average number of switching modes) obtained by the proposed scheduling algorithm on the dual-star WDM networks are better than the solutions obtained by the two-phase algorithm on the similar dual-star WDM networks     

On Hierarchical Traffic Grooming in WDM Networks

The traffic grooming problem is of high practical importance in emerging wide-area wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical networks, yet it is intractable for any but trivial network topologies. In this work, we present an effective and efficient hierarchical traffic grooming framework for WDM networks of general topology, with the objective of minimizing the total number of electronic ports. At the first level of hierarchy, we decompose the network into clusters and designate one node in each cluster as the hub for grooming traffic. At the second level, the hubs form another cluster for grooming intercluster traffic. We view each (first- or second-level) cluster as a virtual star, and we present an efficient near-optimal algorithm for determining the logical topology of lightpaths to carry the traffic within each cluster. Routing and wavelength assignment is then performed directly on the underlying physical topology. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by applying it to two networks of realistic size, a 32-node, 53-link topology and a 47-node, 96-link network. Comparisons to lower bounds indicate that hierarchical grooming is efficient in its use of the network resources of interest, namely, electronic ports and wavelengths. In addition to scaling to large network sizes, our hierarchical approach also facilitates the control and management of multigranular networks.      

Dynamic Routing in WDM Grooming Networks

Traffic grooming in optical networks has gained significant importance in recent years due to the prevailing sub-wavelength traffic requirement of end-users. In this paper, a methodology for dynamic routing of fractional-wavelength traffic in WDM grooming networks is developed. To evaluate the performance of routing algorithms, a new performance metric that reflects the network utilization is also proposed. The performances of shortest-widest path, widest-shortest path, and available shortest path routing algorithms are evaluated on a class of WDM grooming networks by considering traffic of different capacity requirements. The effect of dispersity routing, where higher capacity requests are broken into multiple unit capacity requests, is also investigated. The most interesting counter-intuitive result that is observed is that increasing the grooming capability in a network could result in degrading the performance of the widest-shortest path algorithm.     

Grooming of arbitrary traffic in SONET/WDM BLSRs

SONET add-drop multiplexers (ADMs) are the dominant cost factor in the SONET/WDM rings. They can potentially be reduced by optical bypass via optical add-drop multiplexers (OADMs) and traffic grooming. In this paper we study the grooming of arbitrary traffic in WDM bidirectional line-switched rings (BLSRs) so as to minimize the ADM cost. Two versions of the minimum ADM cost problem are addressed. In the first version, each traffic stream has a predetermined routing. In the second version, the routing of each traffic stream is not given in advance; however, each traffic stream is fully duplex with symmetric demands, which must be routed along the same path but in opposite directions. In both versions, we further consider two variants depending on whether a traffic stream is allowed to be split at intermediate nodes. All the four combinations are NP-hard even for any fixed line-speed. General lower bounds on the minimum ADM cost are provided. Our traffic grooming follows a two-phased approach. The problem targeted at in each phase is NP-hard itself, except the second phase when the line speed is two. Various approximation algorithms are proposed in both phases, and their approximation ratios are analyzed.