A column generation-based heuristic for the GRWA with protection and QoS in WDM optical networks

In this paper, we consider the Grooming, Routing and Wavelength Assignment (GRWA) problem with protection and Quality of Service (QoS) for optical mesh networks. Assuming that traffic demands can vary from low rate to very high demands, grooming several requests into the same wavelength allows a more efficient use of the network capacity. Besides, the need for fault tolerance and QoS became evident in today´s networks. Our objective is to minimize the total number of wavelengths used. A mathematical formulation of the problem is presented in this study along with a column generation-based heuristic. We evaluate the performance of the proposed approach and analyze the role played by the protection and QoS constraints. Our results show that the proposed algorithm is able to find solutions close to optimality for real-world network instances.