Wavelength Converter Placement with Shared Protection Schemes

Abstract

In the previous chapters, we have investigated several protection schemes for optical meshed WDM networks, such as dedicated-path protection (1+1 and 1:1), shared-path protection and shared-link protection. It has been observed that shared-protection schemes, such as shared-path protection and shared-link protection, take advantage of the mesh connectivity and achieve better resource utilization compared to 1+1 dedicated-path protection¹. In a network employing shared-protection schemes, wavelength conversion facilitates the sharing among protection resources and improves the resource utilization in a network. Chapter 4 has demonstrated that the savings of wavelength-links on backup paths can be up to 26% for shared-path protection and 18% for shared-link protection on two example networks. Therefore, wavelength-conversion is desirable in WDM mesh networks when shared-protection schemes are employed.