Limiting Wavelength Converter Usage in Resilient WDM Networks

A careful wavelength assignment (WA) to lambda services must be performed to reduce the total number of wavelength converters (WCs) that are required when the wavelength continuity constraint cannot be met in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks. With the successful introduction of reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs), WDM networks are now growing in size, both in the number of optical nodes and the number of wavelengths supported. Fast and memory efficient WA algorithms are required to design cost effective large WDM networks. This paper presents a scalable and efficient WA heuristic algorithm aimed at reducing the total number of WCs that are required in (large) WDM networks bearing static lambda services. The WA algorithm is applied to both unprotected and (dedicated) protected lambda services. In the latter case, the wavelength continuity constraint between the working and protection path of a lambda service is taken into consideration when non-tunable optical transceivers are employed.