Study of GMPLS lightpath setup over lambda-router networks

Generalized multi-protocol label switching (GMPLS) is currently being specified as the control plane for next-generation optical networks. This paper investigates how GMPLS affects the performance of lambda-router networks. Our performance study reveals the advantage of using a fully tunable laser at each source in the presence of a limited number of wavelength converters. We propose an enhancement to GMPLS which allows a lightpath request to crankback to a lambda router that can use a wavelength converter to complete the lightpath setup successfully. This effectively makes the wavelength converters shared across the network. It is shown that crankback provides an appreciable improvement in performance when fully tunable lasers at the sources are not universally available.