Optimal routing and wavelength assignment for survivable multifibre WDM networks

Multifibre optical networks use a bundle of fibres to realize a link between two optical nodes. Such networks can offer significant economic benefits over single-fibre networks because of their ability to relax the restrictions imposed by the wavelength continuity constraint and their potential for handling future growth. This paper introduces two new and efficient integer linear program (ILP) formulations for dynamic wavelength allocation in survivable multifibre wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) networks, using dedicated and shared protection. Single-fibre networks, both with and without wavelength conversion, can be treated as a special case of these formulations. The new formulations have been tested on several well-known WDM networks, and the results have been compared to those for single-fibre networks. A simple heuristic for dynamic lightpath allocation is also proposed, and its performance is validated by a comparison of the results to optimal solutions generated by the ILPs. Experimental results demonstrate that the new ILPs are feasible for current networks under low-to-medium traffic. For very large or highly congested networks, the heuristic can be used.