Performance of a symmetric robust WDM network when the channel access pattern at nodes is known

Abstract

Many WDM architectures are based on fixed wavelength channels which require the lasers to be tuned to their channels accurately. Achieving this task is difficult and costly especially in the distributed environments. Robust WDM is an approach that tolerates large laser wavelength variations, due to temperature drifts and manufacturing tolerances. A reservation based medium access protocol is used to dynamically select the laser for communication. A token passing based control channel assigns a reservation interval to one of the waiting stations. The performance of a circuit switched robust WDM network is considered when each node has only a limited number of lasers. The model evaluates the performance of a network for a given access pattern, specifying the channels accessible to each station. Simulation results are used to verify the analytic results.