Efficient use of protection bandwidth and switching resources in optical WDM networks

Feature Issue on Photonics in SwitchingWe propose a method for simultaneously achieving high resource usage efficiency in terms of both bandwidth and switching resources in protected optical WDM networks. Branch points in protection bandwidth have previously been shown to lead to slower recovery times. We show that branch avoidance may also lead to more efficient use of resources within optical switches. Through our experimental simulations of our online algorithm with an incremental traffic model, we have found that considering bandwidth alone leads to inefficient use of switching resources. Similarly, total elimination of branching leads to inefficient bandwidth usage. However, taking a balanced approach leads to high efficiency with both resources.