Multicast routing in WDM networks with sparse light splitting

As multicast applications become widely popular, supporting multicast in all-optical wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks becomes an important problem. In this paper, we study multicast routing in sparse splitting WDM networks, in which only a small percentage of nodes are capable of light splitting. Specifically, an efficient sparse splitting constrained multicast routing algorithm called MCNFH is proposed and evaluated by simulations. The results show that the proposed algorithm has better performance in terms of wavelength channel cost and the maximum number of wavelengths per link than existing algorithms.