Burst contention avoidance schemes in hybrid GMPLS-enabled OBS/OCS optical networks

Hybrid optical network architectures, combining benefits of optical circuit and burst switching technologies, become a natural evolution to improve overall network performance while reducing related costs. This paper concentrates on preventive contention avoidance schemes to decrease burst loss probability at the OBS layer of such hybrid network scenarios. Into operation, the proposed solution locally reacts to highly loaded downstream node situations by preventively deflecting bursts through a less loaded neighbor. Two different approaches for disseminating adjacent nodes state information are presented and extensively evaluated. In the first approach, current node state information is propagated downstream in the burst control packet, keeping pace with OBS traffic dynamics. The second approach targets at lower control overhead. In this case, averaged node state statistics are included in the Hello messages of the GMPLS Link Management Protocol (LMP) protocol, which are exchanged between neighboring nodes over the OCS control layer every 150 ms. The obtained results validate the applicability of both approaches. Moreover, they indicate that, depending on the mean burst size, either one or the other approach is favorable.