Multicast traffic grooming in WDM networks

This paper considers the problem of grooming multicast traffic in WDM networks, with arbitrary mesh topologies. The problem is different from grooming of unicast traffic, since traffic can be delivered to destinations through other destinations in the same set, or through branching points. The paper presents an optimal Integer Linear Programming (ILP) formulation in order to minimize the cost of the network in terms of the number of SONET Add/Drop Multiplexers (ADM). The formulation also minimizes the number of wavelength channels used in the network, and does not allow bifurcation of traffic. Since the ILP formulation is able to solve limited size problems, the paper also introduces a heuristic approach to solve the problem.