1.

INTRODUCTION

1.1 WDM Network

WAVELENGTH-DIVISION multiplexing (WDM) is a promising technique to utilize the

enormous band-width of the optical fiber. Multiple wavelength-division multiplexed
channels can be operated on a single fiber simultaneously; however, a fundamental
requirement in fiber-optic communication is that these channels operate at different
wavelengths. These channels can be independently modulated to accommodate dissimilar
data formats, including some analog and some digital, within certain limits. Thus, WDM
utilizes the huge bandwidth (THz) of a single-mode optical fiber while providing channels
whose bandwidths (1–10 GB/s) are compatible with current electronic processing speeds. In
a WDM network, it is possible to route data to their respective destinations based on their
wavelengths. The use of wavelengths to route data is referred to as wavelength routing,
and a network which employs this technique is known as a wavelength-routed network. Such
a network consists of wavelength-routing switches (or routing nodes) which are
interconnected by optical fibers. Some routing nodes (referred to as cross connects) are
attached to access stations where data from several end-users could be multiplexed on to a
single WDM channel. An access station also provides optical-to- electronic (O/E)
conversion and vice versa to interface the optical network with conventional electronic
equipment. A wavelength-routed network which carries data from one access station to
another without any intermediate O/E conversion is referred to as an all-optical wavelength-
routed network. Such all-optical wavelength-routed networks have been proposed for building
large wide-area networks.

1.2 Wavelength Converting Network

Wavelength converters play an important role in WDM networks, as they can improve
network performance by relaxing the wavelength continuity constraint. As converters are
very expensive, it is not economically feasible to place converters at all nodes. Therefore,
there is trade-off between performance gain and cost. Tis pose new challenges to network
designers.
Determining the nodes where converters can be placed in order to optimize network
performance is an important problem. The converter placement problem and some optimal.
And heuristic solutions for maximizing call success probability on a path are discussed. A

1
related problem is converter allocation determining the number of converters each node in a
network can have in order to optimize network performance for a given number of
converters. This problem and a solution based on converter utilization information at various
nodes are discussed.

Figure:- An all-optical wavelength-routed network.

2
 2.NEED FOR WAVELENGTH CONVERTERS

In wavelength route networks, light paths are used to carry messages. A message is
transmitted between the end nodes of a light path without undergoing any electronic-optical
conversion at intermediate nodes. In other words, the message is carried in optical form from
the source node to the destination node. This results in shorter message propagation time.
Also, the need for large buffers at intermediate nodes is eliminated. On the other hand, it has
the drawback of higher connection blocking probability. A lightpath must be wavelength-
continuous, If a route is free but no common wavelength is available on it, then it cannot be
used by a light path. This results in blocking a connection which would otherwise have been
accepted if there were no such wavelength continuity constraints. The question which
naturally arises is: Is there any means by which we can have all the advantages- fully optical
message transmission, no need for intermediate buffering with no penalty in network
performance? Wavelength converters are a viable solution that offers all the above
advantages.

Wavelength-continuity constraint in a wavelength-routed network (a) without converter

Wavelength-continuity constraint in a wavelength-routed network: (b) with converter.

A wavelength converter is a device which is capable of shifting the wavelength of an

incoming signal to a different wavelength. We call a routing node a converting node if it has
wavelength conversion capability. A network is a wavelength converting network if it has at
least one converting node. The wavelength converting constraint is relaxed at the converting
nodes and therefore a convertible network accepts more connections. A semi lightpath is a
transmission path consisting of a sequence of lightpaths with a converting node between any
two consecutive lightpaths. A lightpath is a special case of semi lightpath with no converting
nodes on the path. A semi lightpaths can be distinguished from a lightpath in the sense that it
can use different wavelengths, with possibly a wavelength shift at the converter nodes.

3
Example:-

Let us consider a network with four nodes and two wavelengths per fiber as shown in figure.
The figure shows two copies of network, one for each wavelength. The vertical edge from a
node on one wavelength to the same node on a different wavelength signifies that it is a
converting node. Assuming that connections are required between nodes<0, 2>, <1, 3> and
<2, 1>.Let p1, p2 and p3 be the connections that corresponds to these node pairs. The routes
that can be used by p1, p2 and p3 are 0→1→2, 1→2→3 and 2→3→0→1, respectively. It can
be observed that all three connections cannot be established in a network with no converting
nodes. If p1 uses wavelength w0 then p2 cannot use w0, as they share a common link 1→2.
Consequently, p2 will use wavelength w1. Now, p3 cannot use w0, as it is not free on link
0→1. Also, it cannot use w1, as it is not free on link 2→3. Therefore, p3 cannot be established
because the route is not wavelength continuous, even though it is free.

The connection p3 can be established along with the other two connections, p1 and p2, if node
0 has a converter which can convert from w0 to w1. It can use w0 on links 2→3 and 3→0, and
w1 on link 0→1, as shown in figure. It can be noted that a message on this lightpath
undergoes wavelength conversion from w0 to w1 at node 0. While the connections p1 and p2
are realized by lightpaths, p3 is realized by a semi-lightpath.

Fig:-An illustration of the benefit of wavelength conversion

4
A wavelength converter is said to have full degree of wavelength conversion if it is capable
of shifting any wavelength. Otherwise, it is said to have partial degree of wavelength
conversion. A converter is said to have partial degree of wavelength conversion. A converter
is said to have conversion degree D if it can shift any wavelength to one of D wavelengths .A
converter which is capable of shifting a wavelength I to a range of wavelengths from i-k to
i+k is called a limited range converter. Wavelength converters are expensive.

There are two kinds of wavelength conversion: optical electronic conversion (O-E) and all
optical wavelength conversion (A-O).This classification is based on how wavelength
conversion is realized.

In optical-electronic conversion, wavelength conversion is realized by first converting the

optical signal to an electronic signal and then transmitter bank, and electronic buffers that are
available locally at a node can be used to carry out optical-electronic conversion. The optical
signal is received by one of the receivers in the receiver bank to recover the electronic signal.
The electronic bit stream is stored in the buffer. The electronic signal is then used to
remodulate one of the lasers in the transmitter bank. This method is simple to implement.
However, it reduces network speed, as the electronic-optical conversion takes a significant
amount of time.

In A-O conversion, the conversion is realized in a fully optical way by means of optical
wavelength converter devices. They include absorption saturation of a semiconductor laser
diode, four-wave mixing, and gain saturation of an optical amplifier. The A-O method is
faster, and it increase network speed to a greater extent than the optical-electronic method.

5
 3. ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES

Significant advances in optical and electronic device technologies have made wavelength
conversion feasible. Several different techniques have been demonstrated to perform
wavelength conversion. Many novel switch designs have been proposed for utilizing these
wave- length converters in a wavelength-convertible network.
A. Wavelength-Converter Design
The function of a wavelength converter is to convert data on an input wavelength onto a
possibly different output wavelength among the wavelengths in the system. In the figure,
.
and throughout this section, denotes the input signal wavelength; , the output
(converted) wavelength; , the pump wavelength; , the input frequency; , the
converted frequency; , the pump frequency; and , the continuous wave generated as the
signal.

An ideal wavelength converter should possess the following characteristics :

• Transparency to bit rates and signal formats;
• Fast setup time of output wavelength ;
• Conversion to both shorter and longer wavelengths;
• Moderate input power levels;
• Possibility for same input and output wavelengths (no conversion);
• Insensitivity to input signal polarization;
• Low-chirp output signal with high extinction ratio and large signal-to-noise ratio;
• Simple implementation.
Wavelength conversion techniques can be broadly classified into two types:-
1) O/E Wavelength Conversion: In this method, the op- tical signal to be converted is first
translated into the electronic domain using a photodetector. The electronic bit stream is
stored in the buffer (labelled FIFO for the first-in-first-out queue mechanism). The
electronic signal is then used to drive the input of a tunable laser (labelled T) tuned to the
desired wavelength of the output .This method has been demonstrated for bit rates up to
10-Gb/s . This method, however, is much more complex and consumes much more power
than the other methods described below. Moreover, the process of O/E conversion adversely
affects transparency. All information in the form of phase, frequency, and analog amplitude
of the optical signal. is lost during the conversion process. The highest degree of

6
transparency achievable is digital transparency, where digital signals of any bit rates up to a
certain limit are accommodated.
[The extinction ratio is defined as the ratio of the optical power transmitted for a bit 0 to the
power transmitted for a bit 1].
2) All-Optical Wavelength Conversion: In this method, the optical signal is allowed to
remain in the optical domain throughout the conversion process. Note that, in this context,
all-optical, refers to the fact that there is no O/E conversion involved. Such all-optical
methods can be further divided into the following categories-

a) Wavelength conversion using wave mixing

b) Wavelength conversion using cross modulation

Figure:- Issues in wavelengths conversion

7
 4. WAVELENGTH-CONVERIBLE SWITCH ARCHITECTURES

In this section we study various possible architectures of a wavelength-convertible (WC)

switching node. Wavelength converters are placed in switching nodes in a convertible
network. We discuss three different WC switch architectures: dedicated, share-per-node and
share-per-link. They differ in their performance, complexity and cost.
In the dedicated WC switch architecture, the node has three input fiber links, three output
fiber links, and three wavelengths per fiber. It consists of wavelength demultiplexers, optical
switches, wavelength converters, and wavelength multiplexers. For every input fiber there is
a demultiplexer, for every output fiber there is a multiplexer, and for every output link and a
wavelength there is a wavelength converter (WC) . In general, for a node with D input links
and D output links and W wavelengths per fiber, there are D number of 1×W wavelength
demultiplexers, D number of W×1 wavelength multiplexers, a DW×DW nonblocking optical
switch, and DW number of WCs.

Fig:- Dedicated WC switch architecture

8
An aggregate message received on an incoming fiber is first demultiplexed into different
messages, each on a different wavelength. Each message corresponds to a unique connection.
These messages are sent to the appropriate wavelength switch. Each wavelength is switched
to one of the output ports connected to the desired output link by the optical switch. The
output message of the optical switch may have its wavelength shifted by the wavelength
converter. Finally, several messages, each on a different wavelength, which are outbound to a
particular output link, are wavelength-multiplexed into an aggregated message coupled to the
output link. Since for every link and wavelength there is a converter, no connection request
will be blocked due to the nonavailability of a wavelength converter at a node. For example,
if at a node, wavelength wi is available on its input link and wj is available on its output link,
there will always be a free converter at the node that can be used by a connection. This results
in increased acceptance rate of connection requests. However, this architecture requires many
wavelength converters, thus increasing the cost of the switch. In practice, at any instant of
time, the number of connections that require wavelength converters at a node is much less
than DW. Therefor this switch may not use the converters effectively. A cost-effective
solution is to use only a few converters and allow their sharing. The share-per-node WC
switch and share-per-link WC switch differ in the way the converters are shared.
The share-pre-node wavelength-convertible switch uses two optical switches and a
wavelength converter bank (WCB) as shown in figure. A wavelength converter bank is a
collection of a few wavelength converters. Assume that there are k converters in the WCB.
The first optical switch is a DW× (DW+k) nonblocking switch and the second switch is a
k×Dk nonblocking switch. The aggregate message arriving at an input link is demultiplexed
into different wavelengths. These wavelengths are fed to the first optical switch. If
wavelength does not require conversion, it is fed directly to the multiplexer associated with
the desired output link. Otherwise, it is fed to the converter bank. The second optical switch
directs the converted wavelength to the multiplexer associated with the desired output link.
All the messages which are outbound to an output link are multiplexed into an aggregate
message by the multiplexer, before it is sent. Here, the wavelength converters are shared
efficiently. This architecture is cost-effective in the sense that the performance-cost ration is
high. The performance is good, although it is lower than that yielded by the other
architectures. The optical switching complexity is higher when compared to other
architectures.

9
 Fig:-The share per node WC switch architecture

In a share-per-link wavelength-convertible switch every output link has associated with it

a dedicated converter bank which can be accessed only by those connections traversing that
particular output link. It uses one optical switch only. If every converter bank has k
converters, then the optical switch is a DW× (DW+Dk) nonblocking switch. The aggregate
message arriving at an output link is demultiplexed into different wavelengths these
wavelengths are fed to the optical switch. If a wavelength does not require conversion, it is
fed directly to the multiplexer associated with the desired output link. Otherwise, it is fed to
the converter bank associated with the desired output link and the converted wavelength is
fed to the multiplexer.

10
 Fig:- The share per link WC switch architecture

All the message which are outbound to an output link are multiplexed into an aggregate
message by the multiplexer, before it sent. Here, the sharing efficiency of wavelength
converters is medium, as a converter bank is dedicated to a particular output link only. The
cost is low, as it uses fewer numbers of converters. The optical switching complexity is
higher than that of the dedicated-switch and is lower than for the share-per-node switch. In
Table the three different convertible switch architectures are compared.

Switch Type Performance Sharing Cost Switching

Efficiency Effectiveness Complexity
Dedicated High Low Low Low
Share-per- Low High High High
node
Share-per- Medium Medium Medium Medium
link

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 5. ROUTING IN CONVERTIBLE NETWORKS

A good routing algorithm is required to choose a minimum-cost semi-lightpath between a

node pair in convertible network. Such a shortest-path-finding algorithm needs to choose a
physical route and wavelengths on the links along the route according to some cost criterion.
In this section we describe and algorithm to find a shortest path between a pair of nodes in a
wavelength-convertible network. We first explain how a convertible network can be
represented as a graph and then present a shortest-path-finding algorithm. Consider a network
with N nodes and W wave lengths. The nodes are labelled from 0 to N-1 and the wavelengths
are labelled from 0 W-1. Out of N nodes, K nodes are assumed to be converting nodes. A
node can be wavelength-converting (WC) node or a wavelength-selective (WS) node,
depending on whether it has wavelength conversion capability or not. A converting node can
have its own degree of conversion independent of other converting nodes. The wavelength
conversion can be realized either optically or electronically.

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 6.PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF CONVERTIBLE NETWORK

Recently, several attempts have been made to evaluate the performance of WDM networks
with and without wavelength conversion through analytical models. In this section we give an
overview of the models developed. In the next section we present a detailed discussion of a
model developed in. The analytical models available in the literature differ in their
assumptions about the correlation of load on successive link, use of a wavelength on a link in
relation to the use of other wavelengths, and the route and wavelength selectin methods. The
above criteria are discussed below-

Link load correlation- The correlation between load or wavelength use on successive link is
termed as link load correlation. If the correlation is not taken into consideration, then the
model is termed a link interdependence model. The link independence model is not accurate
for WDM networks and in particular for sparsely connected is high. Consequently, the link
independence model overestimates the blocking probability.

Wavelength use on a link- A model which makes an assumption that a wavelength is used
on a link with a fixed probability independent of the other wavelengths is known as a
wavelength independence model. Like the link independence model, this model is inaccurate
and overestimates the blocking probability.

Route selection method- The route selection method assumed by a model greatly affects the
result of the blocking probability computation. The possible methods are fixed routing, fixed
alternate routing, and least-costed-path routing.

Wavelength selection method- Like the route selection method, the wavelength selection
method assumed by a model also greatly affects the result of the blocking probability
computation. The possible wavelength selection methods are random and first-fit.

13
 7. NETWORK DESIGN, CONTROL, AND MANAGEMENT ISSUES

7.1 Network Design

Network designs must evolve to effectively incorporate wavelength conversion. Network

designers must choose not only among the various conversion techniques, but also among
the several switch architectures. An important challenge in the design is to overcome the
limitations in using wavelength-conversion technology. These limitations fall into the
following three categories.

1) Sparse location of wavelength converters in the network: As long as wavelength converters

remain expensive, it may not be economically viable to equip all the nodes in a WDM
network with these devices. The effects of sparse conversion (i.e., having only a few
converting switches in the network) on lightpath blocking have been examined in. An
interesting question which has not been answered thoroughly is where (optimally?) to place
these few converters in an arbitrary network and what is the likely upgrade-path toward
full-fledged convertibility? A heuristic technique for the placement of these sparse
converters in an all-optical network is presented in.

2) Sharing of converters: Even among the switches capable of wavelength conversion, it may
not be cost-effective to equip all the output ports of a switch with this capability. Designs of
switch architectures have been proposed (see Section II-B) which allow sharing of converters
among the various signals at a switch. It has been shown in that the performance of such a
network saturates when the number of converters at a switch increases beyond a certain
threshold. An interesting problem is to quantify the dependence of this threshold on the
routing algorithm used and the blocking probability desired.

3) Limited-range wavelength conversion: Four-wave- mixing-based all-optical wavelength

converters provide only a limited-range conversion capability. Analysis shows that networks
employing such devices, however, compare favourably with those utilizing converters with
full-range capability, under certain conditions. Limited-range wavelength conversion can also
be provided at nodes using O/E conversion techniques.

Other wavelength-converter techniques have some limitations too. The wavelength

converter using SOA’s in XGM mode suffers greater degradation when the input signal is
up-converted to a signal of equal or longer wavelength than when it is down-converted to a

14
shorter wave- length. Moreover, since the signal quality usually worsens after multiple
such conversions, the effect of a cascade of these converters can be substantial. The
implications of such a device on the design of the network need to be studied further. Apart
from efficient wavelength-convertible switch architectures and their optimal placement,
several other design techniques offer promise. Networks equipped with multiple fibers on
each link have been considered for potential improvement in wavelength-convertible
networks and suggested as a possible alternative to conversion. Another important problem
is the design of a fault-tolerant wavelength-convertible network. Such a network could
reserve capacity on the links to handle disruptions due to link failure caused by a cut in
the fiber. Quantitative comparisons need to be developed for the suitability of a
wavelength-convertible network in such scenarios.

7.2 Network Control

Control algorithms are required in a network to manage its resources effectively. An

important task of the control mechanism is to provide routes (i.e., sets of fiber links) to
the lightpath requests and to assign wavelengths on each of the links along this route
while maximizing a desired system parameter, e.g., throughput. Such routing and wave-
length assignment (RWA) schemes can be classified into static and dynamic categories,
depending on whether the lightpath requests are known a priori or not. These two categories
are described below.

1) Dynamic routing and wavelength assignment: In a wavelength-routed optical network,

lightpath requests between source-destination pairs arrive at random and each lightpath has a
random holding time after which it is torn down. These lightpaths need to be set up
dynamically by determining a route through the network connecting the source to the
destination and assigning a free wavelength along this path. Two lightpaths which have at
least one link in common cannot use the same wavelength. Moreover, the same wavelength
has to be assigned to a path on all of its links. This is the wavelength-continuity constraint
described in Section I. This routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) problem, or variants
of it, has been studied earlier for networks without wavelength conversion. Dynamic routing
algorithms have been proposed for use in a wavelength-convertible network. In such a
scheme, there is a fixed path between every source- destination pair in the network. Several
RWA heuristics have been designed based on which wavelength to assign to a lightpath along

15
the fixed path and which, if any, lightpaths to block selectively. However, design of efficient
routing algorithms which incorporate the limitations still remains an open problem.

2) Static RWA: In contrast to the dynamic routing problem described above, the static RWA
problem assumes that all the lightpaths that are to be set up in the network are known
initially. The objective is to maximize the total throughput in the network, i.e., the total
number of lightpaths which can be established simultaneously in the network. An upper
bound on the carried traffic per available wavelength has been obtained (for a network with
and without wavelength conversion) by relaxing the corresponding integer linear program
(ILP) .Several heuristic-based approaches have been proposed for solving the static RWA
problem in a network without wavelength conversion . A special case of the static RWA
problem, in which all the lightpath requests can be accommodated, is discussed for networks
with limited wavelength conversion. Again, efficient algorithms which incorporate the
limitations for a wavelength-convertible network are still unavailable.

C. Network Management

Wavelength conversion may be used to promote interloper- ability across subnetworks which
are managed independently. Thus, it supports the distribution of network control and
management functionalities among smaller subnetworks by allowing flexible wavelength
assignments within each subnet- work. Network operators 1, 2, and 3 manage their own
subnetworks and may use wavelength conversion for communication across subnetworks. In
,the authors propose to install wavelength converters at the borders between non overlapping
network partitions in the Cost 239 European optical network.

16
 8.NETWORK WITH SPARSE WAVELENGTH CONVERSION

The blocking performance of WDM networks can be improved by sing wavelength

converters at the routing nodes. However, all-optical converters are very expensive.
Therefore, a more practical and cost-effective solution is to use only a few converting nodes.
Then many questions arise naturally: (1) Given k number of converters (converting nodes),
how can the mean blocking probability in a network be computed? (2) Is it possible to
achieve performance close to the best achievable with only a few converters? (3) What is the
effect of network topology on the number of converters required? (4) Given k number of
converters, how can the best k nodes be chosen to place them, to achieve optimal
performance? There has been considerable research in the literature to answer all the above
questions. We address all the above issues in this section and in the following sections.

In this section we explain the analytical model developed to study blocking performance in
the networks with spares wavelength conversion, where the converters with full degree of
wavelength conversion are placed only at a few nodes. We first present an analytical model
called the Markovian link load correlation (MLLC) model to compute the call blocking
probability in a network with no wavelength conversion capability. Then we extend this
model to compute the call blocking probability in a network with a certain number of
converters.

Fig:- Calls arriving and leaving on a two-hop path

17
 9.A MODEL FOR NETWORK WITH NO CONVERSION

We now explain the MLLC model to compute the mean call blocking probability in a
network with no wavelength converters. The model is attractive and useful because it is
accurate, taking into consideration the link load correlation with moderate computational
complexity. Also, it does not make the wavelength independence assumption. The fixed
routing and random wavelength selection methods are used. The assumptions made by this
model are summarized below.

1. Call requests arrive dynamically at a node according to a Poisson process.

2. Call holding time is exponentially distributed.
3. The fixed routing method is used. A shortest path is chosen for a node pair.
4. The number of wavelength W is the same on all the links. Each node is capable of
transmitting and receiving on any of the W wavelength on a link leaving the node.
5. The random wavelength selection method is used.

The model starts by considering a two-hop path deriving the conditional free wavelength
distribution on the path. We use “hop” and “link” interchangeably in this section. The states
of a two-hop path can be modelled using a three-dimensional Markov chain as follows.

Consider Figs Let Cl be the number of calls that enter the path at node 0 and leave at node 1.
Let Cc be the number of calls that enter the path at node 0 and continue on to the second link.
And let Ce be the number of calls that enter the at node 1. Therefore, the number of calls that
use the first link Cl+Cc and the number of cals that use the second link is Cc+Ce. Since the
number of calls on a link cannot exceed the total number of available wavelengths W, we
have Cl+Cc ≤ W and Cc+Ce ≤ W.

18
 10.USEFULNESS OF CONVERTERS

The usefulness of wavelength converters depends on the connectivity of the network in a

manner that cannot be predicted by intuition. An analytical model such as the MLLC model
can be used to determine the usefulness of converters. The following observations are made
from analytical as well as experimental results. When the connectivity is low, as in rings,
converters are not very useful because of the high load correlation. This high correlation
implies that the expected number of links shared by any two sessions is large; conversion
merely permutes the wavelengths used by the sessions, without greatly increasing the ability
to accommodate a new session. In the case of densely connected networks wherein the
connectivity is high, converters are not very beneficial because of small hop lengths, despite
low load correlation and significant traffic mixing. In a WAN with an irregular topology and
a large number of links, the number of wavelength is much more important than wavelength
conversion capability. A network with medium-level connectivity offers great advantages
when wavelength converters are present. This is because the link load correlation is almost
negligible, while the hop-lengths are large compared to those in densely connected networks.

The performance improves rapidly as the conversion density increases from zero, but the rate
of improvement slows down with increasing conversion density, The conversion density
beyond which the performance improves only marginally depends on the number of
wavelengths and the network load. This suggests that placing a converter at every node is
rarely necessary, if at all. In general, wavelength converters are more effective when the
number of wavelengths is larger and when the load is lower.

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 11.CONVERTER PLACEMENT PROBLEM

The previous section discussed how the performance of a convertible network in terms of the
connection blocking probability can be predicted for a given number of converting nodes. In
this section we study another important problem known as the converter placement problem.
This problem can be stated as follows.

Given K number of converters, and a network with N≥K number of nodes, how do we choose
K nodes such that placing the converters at these nodes yields the best performance
achievable using K converters?

The converter placement problem for an arbitrary network is NP-complete. The topology of a
network and the traffic pattern greatly affect the optimal solution to the placement problem.
Some of the factors which affect the optimal converter placement are discussed below-

1. A node with heavy transit traffic could be a possible candidate for converter
placement. However if does very little missing (or switching) of traffic, it may not be
a good choice for an optimal solution.
2. A node which mixes a significant amount of traffic may not be a good candidate for
an optimal solution, if the transit traffic at this node is les.
3. The distance between two converting nodes is a significant factor in obtaining an
optimal solution. The blocking probability increases with increasing distance between
two converting nodes.

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 12.CONVERTER ALLOCATION PROBLEM

The converter placement problem we discussed earlier was concerned with selection a gew
nodes which can use wavelength converters, so as to optimize some performance matric such
as connection blocking probability. As a result, some nodes in a network have conversion
capability while others do not. Usually, it is assumed that enough converters are available at a
converting node so that no connection request is blocked due to the nonavailability of
converters at a converting node. This assumption is valid when dedicated WC switch
architecture is used. This architecture uses a number of converters equal to the number of
outgoing fiber times the number of wavelengths per fiber. For other architectures, such as
share-per-node and share-per-link, only a limited number of wavelength converters is
assumed to be available a converting node. Here, determining the number of wavelength
converters to be used at every node in the network is mandatory to optimize the network
performance for a given number of converters. This leads to the converter allocation problem,
which is formally defined below.

Given a network with a fixed number with a fixed number of wavelengths per fiber, traffic
demanded pattern between node pairs, and C number of wavelength converters, the converter
allocation problem is to distribute the converters over the network nodes so as to optimize a
certain network performance metric such as connection blocking probability.

The converter allocation problem is an important and valid problem in WDM networks, as
some of the nodes are required to handle heavier volumes of traffic. This is because the
network topology is usually irregular and the traffic demand pattern between ode pairs is
often no uniform. Therefore, allocating more converters to nodes that handle a heavy volume
of traffic will probably result in improved network performance. Solutions to this problem
will vary depending upon the kind of architecture and the kind of wavelength converters
used. The architecture can be either share-per-node or share-per-link. The wavelength
converters can have either full or partial degree of wavelength conversion. In other words,
full-degree wavelength converters (FWCs) or partial-degree wavelength converters (PWCs)
can be employed.

21
 SUMMARY

In this chapter several important problems in wavelength convertible networks were studied.
The benefit of employing wavelength converters was explained with an illustration. Three
different wavelength-convertible switch architectures, dedicated, share-per-node, and share-
per-link, were explained, and a comparison study was made based on criteria such as
performance and cost.

The routing problem was then addressed. A procedure to model a convertible network as a
graph was described. A shortest-path-finding algorithm on this graph was presented and its
computational complexity was studied. A brief description of some analytical models to
predict the performance of convertible networks was given and the performance results were
discussed. A detailed discussion of networks with sparse wavelength conversion and an
analytical model for such networks was presented. The use fullness of converters and how
they are affected by network topological connectivity were discussed.

The converter placement problem was studied. Some optimal solutions and heuristic solution
for placement of converters on a path were presented. Finally, the converter allocation
problem was studied. The importance of the converter allocation problem and a solution
based on converter utilization information at he nodes obtained by simulation experiments
were explained.

22
 REFRERENCES

BOOKS:

C.Siva Ram Murthy ,Mohan Gurusamy, “WDM OPTICAL NETWORKS, Concept design and
algorithms” ,Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering Indian Institute of
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htp://digitalcommons.unl.edu/csearticles/68
htp://digitalcommons.unl.edu/csearticles
https://www.researchgate.net/publication
ieeexplore.ieee.org/document
https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca

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