Design of the wavelength-division optical network

The authors consider the wavelength-division optical network (WON), a generalization of the ShuffleNet concept. Motivated by the potential drawback of large delays in poorly designed WONs, they introduce and use a queuing-network model of the WON that provides a general framework for analyzing the performance of these networks. This performance model is used to formulate the virtual-topology design problem. Using the optimization technique of simulated annealing, a number of instances of the virtual-topology design problem were solved. The results have been very encouraging and have yielded significant-and sometimes dramatic-improvement in delay and throughput, compared to previously proposed, unoptimized design approaches such as ShuffleNet and the Manhattan street network. The authors discuss their experiences with the optimization algorithm and outline continuing efforts in this area