Influences of link cost and routing methods on dynamic multicasting in overlay IP/MPLS over WDM networks

Overlay IP/MPLS over WDM network holds great promise for the Next-Generation Internet. One key design challenge with such a network is the limited information exchange between its two layers. We evaluate the influences of limited WDM-layer link cost information and routing strategies on network performances for dynamic multicast traffic grooming. Simulation results show that both WDM-layer link cost information and routing strategy have significant impacts on the network performances, especially when the network resources are abundant. In addition, the impacts of WDM-layer link cost information are more significant compared to those of the routing strategy. The results suggest that there is significant potential for network performance improvements by designing more efficient schemes for overlay traffic grooming and sharing of link-state information between the WDM and IP/MPLS layers.