On the design of optical deflection-routing networks

Deflection routing plays a prominent role in many optical network architectures, because it can be implemented with modest packet-buffering requirements. From the practical perspective, however, the implementation of deflection routing, which is normally based on global time slotting, might pose challenges. The authors develop approaches to the implementation of both slotted and unslotted deflection-routing optical networks. They analyse important tradeoffs that are inherent to the design of optical deflection-routing networks and compare the performance of slotted and unslotted networks. Under a reasonable set of assumptions about optical technology, the results suggest that the unslotted link protocol should be the preferred approach to building the optical deflection-routing network