Fairness in WDM Optical Networks without Wavelength Conversions

In this paper, we investigate the problem of fairness in Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) networks without conversions. While most of the studies done concentrate on total network performance, little attention has been paid to fairness during the design of WDM networks. Fairness is a very serious issue in networks without conversions. The call blocking probabilities are very sensitive to the path length. We propose a near optimal fair capacity planning and fair routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) for WDM networks. Our approach is based on solving the call blocking probabilities for static routing with Random/First-Fit wavelength assignment algorithm. We use the Fairness Index and the total network performance as the objectives of our capacity planning and RWA design. The Fairness Index measures the fairness between all source/destination pairs. Simulated Annealing approach is used for capacity planning and RWA design.