Input wavelength conversion in optical packet switches

This letter analyzes an architecture for optical packet switches in which the wavelength converters are shared per input line (SPIL). The architecture performance are evaluated by means of an analytical model and are compared with those of an optical packet switch architecture in which the wavelength converters are shared per output line (SPOL). The obtained results show that in both balanced and unbalanced traffic scenarios the proposed architecture allows for a remarkable saving in terms of number of converters. In some cases this saving can reach 50%.     

光分组交换中的波长变换器配置研究

首先对波长变换器的功能及分类进行详细的论述,然后,对波长变换器的配置进行分析,总结出两种波长变换器配置方法,即独占式配置方法和共享式配置方法.针对独占式配置方法,本文使用仿真实验的方法研究了在不同类型的波长变换器下交换节点丢包性能的差异.本文还对独占式配置方法和共享式配置方法进行对比研究.     

一种FDL和LRWC相结合的光分组交换网络的性能分析

研究了FDL和有限长波长转换器(LRWC)相结合的方法来解决异步变长的分组交换网中的冲突问题,对这种冲突解决方案建立了数学模型并进行了理论分析,提出了一个用于修正最佳延迟单元的公式,即在负载较大的情况下,我们要求延迟单元较小,这样可显著的降低在此交换网中的分组丢失率;对系统丢包率与负载、FDL数目和最佳延迟单元的关系进行了研究和讨论,结果表明:在同样的输入负载情况下,有限长波长转换器(LRWC)的引入可以降低缓存的数量;对延迟单元的修正可以大大降低丢包率,同时系统的性能较之单独使用FDL时有较大的改善。     

Performance tradeoffs of optical WDM switches using different shared limited-range wavelength conversion mechanisms

The effects of different wavelength conversion ranging configurations on the performance of Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) optical switches are investigated. Any-to-Any, Any-to-Range, Range-to-Any, and Range-to-Range conversion ranging configurations are considered. These mechanisms provide important design alternatives for optical switches due to technological limitations in the implementation of full range wavelength conversion in an all-optical wavelength converter device. Limited-range wavelength converter (LRWC) is a more economical and practical solution for WDM based optical networks. Differences among the input and output side ranging mechanisms and their effects on conversion resource sharing, and consequently on performance, are investigated. Any- to-Range ranging configuration is the most efficient mechanism and it operates comparably to Any-to-Any, reducing the need for complex control algorithms. The results help determine the most efficient ranging configuration for all-optical crossconnect.     

Performance modeling of bufferless WDM packet switching networks with limited-range wavelength conversion

All optical communication is attracting more and more attention because of the huge bandwidth of optics. In this paper, we study the performance of bufferless optical wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) packet switching networks with limited-range wavelength conversion capabilities. We first introduce an optimal scheduling algorithm that maximizes the throughput of the switch. We then derive an analytical model to evaluate the performance of the switch in terms of packet-loss probability. Our model is the first accurate analytical model for a bufferless WDM packet switch with variable conversion distances, and can be used to quantitatively determine the maximum load for a given conversion distance or the minimum conversion distance for a given traffic load. We also conducted simulations to validate the analytical model. Both the analytical and simulation results reveal that limited-range wavelength conversion can achieve almost the same performance as full-range wavelength conversion.     

基于共享有限波长和参量波长转换器的冲突解决方案

研究了一种共享有限波长转换器(LRWC)和参量波长转换器(PWC)相结合的解决全光分组波长资源竞争的方案,并提出了PWC优先算法作为光分组交换中的波长竞争解决方案。仿真结果表明:本文结构与共享LRWC节点结构相比,减少了波长转换器的数目,并且能够明显降低光分组交换节点的分组丢包率(PLP),提高波长转换器的利用率。研究还发现,不同波长转换器配置方案对系统性能有影响。     

Buffering in optical packet switches

This paper consists of a categorization of optical buffering strategies for optical packet switches, and a comparison of the performance of these strategies both with respect to packet loss/delay and bit error rate (BER) performance. Issues surrounding optical buffer implementation are discussed, and representative architectures are introduced under different categories. Conclusions are drawn about packet loss and BER performance, and about the characteristics an architecture should have to be practical. It is shown that there is a strong case for the use of optical regeneration for successful cascading of these architectures     

Blocking probability of asynchronous optical burst/packet switches with limited range wavelength conversion

A theoretical analysis of the performance of asynchronous bufferless optical burst/packet switch with limited range wavelength conversion is proposed. We analyze the problem using a queuing model of birth-death process with discouraged arrivals. To calculate the discouraged arrival rate, a theorem about the average number of circular runs is introduced and proved. The effectiveness and advantage of the method is verified by simulation and comparison.     

An optical packet contention resolution supporting QoS differentiation with LRWC wavelength converters for OPS

The wavelength conversion is regarded as an effective way to resolve the optical packet contention in the wavelength domain for optical packet switching. An optical packet switching node, based on shared-per-node equipped with limited range wavelength converters and parametric wavelength converters (SPN-LP), is designed to further reduce optical packet loss probability. A novel optical packet contention resolution with priority differentiation wavelength scheduling algorithm to support quality of service (QoS) for the SPN-LP architecture is put forward in the article. The simulation results show that proposed optical packet resolution enables a good QoS differentiation, namely the high priority contending optical packet has the sufficient low packet loss probability.     

Shared-by-wavelength-switches: a node architecture using small optical switches and shared wavelength converters

Wavelength converters can significantly improve the blocking performance of all-optical networks. The existing node architectures require large optical switches for sharing the wavelength converters. This letter proposes a new node architecture called shared-by-wavelength-switches . This node architecture requires significantly smaller and cheaper optical switches for sharing the wavelength converters while it gives nearly the same blocking performance as the existing node architectures.     

Blocking models of optical burst switches with shared wavelength converters: exact formulations and analytical approximations

Loss modeling of asynchronous optical burst switches with shared wavelength converters is considered. An exact analysis based on continuous time Markov chains is proposed and validated by comparison with simulation for balanced and unbalanced traffic. A computationally efficient approximated analysis is also proposed and compared with the exact model to find applicability conditions. Approximate loss performance evaluation is presented for ranges of values which are not tractable either by simulation or exact analysis.

On scheduling optical packet switches with reconfiguration delay

Using optical technology for the design of packet switches/routers offers several advantages such as scalability, high bandwidth, power consumption, and cost. However, reconfiguring the optical fabric of these switches requires significant time under current technology (microelectromechanical system mirrors, tunable elements, bubble switches, etc.). As a result, conventional slot-by-slot scheduling may severely cripple the performance of these optical switches due to the frequent fabric reconfiguration that may entail. A more appropriate way is to use a time slot assignment (TSA) scheduling approach to slow down the scheduling rate. The switch gathers the incoming packets periodically and schedules them in batches, holding each fabric configuration for a period of time. The goal is to minimize the total transmission time, which includes the actual traffic-sending process and the reconfiguration overhead. This optical switch scheduling problem is defined in this paper and proved to be NP-complete. In particular, earlier TSA algorithms normally assume the reconfiguration delay to be either zero or infinity for simplicity. To this end, we propose a practical algorithm, ADJUST, that breaks this limitation and self-adjusts with different reconfiguration delay values. The algorithm runs at O(/spl lambda/N/sup 2/logN) time complexity and guarantees 100% throughput and bounded worst-case delay. In addition, it outperforms existing TSA algorithms across a large spectrum of reconfiguration values.     

Wavelength allocation in an optical switch with a fiber delay line buffer and limited-range wavelength conversion

This paper presents an approach to evaluate the performance of an optical switch equipped with both limited-range wavelength conversion and Fiber Delay Lines to resolve contention. We propose an analytical model that allows a general behavior for the packet size distribution while the inter-arrival times are assumed to be of Phase-Type and can easily be relaxed to be generally distributed if needed. As the set of reachable wavelengths is a major issue in limited-range wavelength conversion, we first focus on a simple wavelength set configuration that allows the comparison of different policies and their effect on the loss rate of the system. In addition, a linear association between the loss rate of the simple and a more complex set configuration is identified. Using this association and the results from the analytical model, we derive an approximation for the more complex case, where the interactions among adjacent wavelengths play an important role. The approximation works well for different parameter instances and is particularly useful for the mid load case, when simulations become computationally prohibitive.     

An analytical model for input-buffered optical packet switches with reconfiguration overhead

The overhead associated with reconfiguring a switch fabric in optical packet switches is an important issue in relation to the packet transmission time and can adversely affect switch performance. The reconfiguration overhead increases the mean waiting time of packets and reduces throughput. The scheduling of packets must take into account the reconfiguration frequency. This work proposes an analytical model for input-buffered optical packet switches with the reconfiguration overhead and analytically finds the optimal reconfiguration frequency that minimizes the mean waiting time of packets. The analytical model is suitable for several round-robin (RR) scheduling schemes in which only non-empty virtual output queues (VOQs) are served or all VOQs are served and is used to examine the effects of the RR scheduling schemes and various network parameters on the mean waiting time of packets. Quantitative examples demonstrate that properly balancing the reconfiguration frequency can effectively reduce the mean waiting time of packets.     

Performance analysis of wavelength assignment policies inall-optical networks with limited-range wavelength conversion

Previous analytic approaches for all-optical networks have only allowed a random wavelength assignment policy in spite of the fact that network performance can be improved by other wavelength assignment policies such as first-fit wavelength assignment. We develop an approximate analytic method to allow flexible wavelength assignment policies by virtue of a layered-graph approach. Our analysis is also applicable to the networks that wavelength conversion is limitedly provided. By comparing with simulation results, we show that our analytic approach has good accuracies when the number of wavelengths is not large. We also show that our analysis is applicable to general network topologies     

Performance analysis of multi-fiber WDM network with limited-range wavelength conversion

Wavelength routed optical networks have emerged as a technology that can effectively utilize the enormous bandwidth of the optical fiber. Wavelength conversion technology and wavelength converters play an important role in enhancing fiber utilization and in reducing the overall call blocking probability of the network. In this paper, we develop a new analytical model to calculate the average blocking probability in multi-fiber link networks using limited-range wavelength conversion. Based on the results obtained, we conclude that the proposed analytical model is simple and yet can effectively analyze the impact of wavelength conversion ranges and number of fibers on network performance. Also a new heuristic approach for placement of wavelength converters to reduce blocking probabilities is explored. Finally, we analyze network performance with the proposed scheme. It can be observed from numerical simulations that limited-range converters placed at a few nodes can provide almost the same blocking probability as full range wavelength converters placed at all the nodes. We also show that being equipped with a multi-fiber per-link has the same effect as being equipped with the capability of limited-range wavelength conversion. So a multi-fiber per-link network using limited-range wavelength conversion has similar blocking performance as a full wavelength convertible network. Since a multi-fiber network using limited-range wavelength conversion could use fewer converters than a single-fiber network using limited range wavelength conversion and because wavelength converters are today more expensive than fiber equipment, a multi-fiber network in condition with limited-range wavelength conversion is less costly than a single-fiber network using only limited-range wavelength conversion. Thus, multi-fiber per-link network using limited-range wavelength conversion is currently a more practical method for all optical WDM networks. Simulation studies carried out on a 14-node NSFNET, a 10-node CERNET (China Education and Research Network), and a 9-node regular mesh network validate the analysis.     

Cell-sorting device for creating synchronous variable-length optical packet switches

We consider the design of a synchronous variable-length optical packet switch. Fixed-length packet switches may be used to switch variable-length packets if the packets are first divided into multiple fixed-length cells. However, for many fixed-length switch architectures, cells from multiple packets will become interspersed, and packet integrity will not be preserved. We describe the design of a fiber-delay-line-based cell sorter that when appended to the output of a fixed-length packet switch converts the switch into a variable-length packet switch by enabling variable-length packets to exit contiguously. We describe two implementations of the cell sorter. The first is simply a bank of delay lines. The second uses two stages of time-slot interchange and reduces the number of delay line elements to be a logarithmic function of the maximum packet length. We also estimate the packet-blocking probabilities of the resulting variable-length packet switch and verify our results via simulation.     

Noise and crosstalk limitations in optical cross-connects withreshaping wavelength converters

Noise and crosstalk are two important limiting factors in optical networks with optical cross-connects (OXC's). If reshaping wavelength converters are used in the OXC nodes, noise and crosstalk are transformed into timing jitter which accumulates in the network and limits the performance. A method to evaluate the influence of jitter caused by noise and crosstalk in cascaded OXC's is presented and applied to three different OXC architectures, taking both coherent and incoherent crosstalk into account. In the analyzed architectures, the losses in the OXC and the coherent crosstalk is found to be the most important limitations     

Design of wavelength converting switches for optical burst switching

Optical burst switching (OBS) is an experimental network technology that enables the construction of very high-capacity routers, using optical data paths and electronic control. In this paper, we study wavelength converting switches using tunable lasers and wavelength grating routers, that are suitable for use in OBS systems and evaluate their performance. We show how the routing problem for these switches can be formulated as a combinatorial puzzle or game, in which the design of the game board corresponds to the pattern of permutation used at the input sections of the switch. We use this to show how the permutation pattern affects the performance of the switch, and to facilitate the design of permutation patterns that yield the best performance. We give upper bounds on the number of different wavelength channels that can be routed through such switches (regardless of the permutation pattern), and show that for 2/spl times/2 switches, there is a simple permutation pattern that achieves these bounds. For larger switches, randomized permutation patterns produce the best results. We study the performance of optical burst switches using wavelength converting switches based on several different permutation patterns. We also present a novel routing algorithm called the most available wavelength assignment and evaluate its benefits in improving the switch throughput. Our results show that for a typical configuration, the switch with the best permutation pattern has more than 87% of the throughput of a fully nonblocking switch.