Optical Packet Switching with Packet Aggregation

1 This work has been supported by The “National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada” (NSERC) and the “Canadian Institute for Telecommunications Research” (CITR) Abstract: In this paper we address the problem of maximizing the utilization of optical network bandwidth by proposing a technique called packet containerization at the edge of the optical network. This technique aggregates several packets into a single larger packet called the container packet. The container packet is then sent over the optical backbone network. The purpose of packet aggregation is to ensure that container packets have sufficient data to increase the bandwidth utilization of the optical links. To address quality-of-service requirements for delay sensitive applications, we reduce the packet delay inherent in the aggregation process by introducing an aggregation timeout threshold to guarantee an upper bound on the aggregation delay. Using simulation models supported by a mean-value mathematical analysis we show that the Containerization with Aggregation Timeout (CAT) algorithm significantly increases the utilization of the optical network bandwidth subject to timeout constraints.