Dynamic Light Trail Construction in Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) Optical Networks

Abstract

This paper addresses dynamic light trail construction issues in a WDM optical network. This construction was done with an objective to consume a minimum number of resources, such as, the number of free wavelengths, while ensuring that the light trails were always available and had backups especially in cases of failure. A simulation study had been carried out in a previous study in 2010 (27), and this paper took it further by implementing the proposed dynamic light trail routing algorithms using the Java language as well as running additional simulations. The paper then presented numerical results that compared and evaluated the performance of the dynamic light trail scheme versus the light path scheme, in terms of the accepted connections and consumed free wavelength links. In both, consideration without protection and with protection, was done on various well known Internet topologies. Suggestions for further research were also proposed.