Impact of link failure in the performance of optical OPS/OBS limited-area networks with node ingress buffering

Considering Optical Metro-Access Networks (limited-area networks) with photonic switching optical nodes, we analyze network performance and the impact of link failure using computer modeling and simulations, when electronic buffering at ingress (client input) is implemented. Mesh and ring topologies are adopted with number of nodes varying from 9 to 36, in regular and quasi-regular topologies. The parameters packet loss fraction and average number of hops are adopted for performance metrics. Use of minimum electronic buffering at ingress is demonstrated to improve access to the optical layer, and necessary to keep the packet loss fraction low and throughput high with low latency. We also show that optical buffering is not necessary for adequate network performance.