Optical Buffer-based Service Differentiation in Burst Switching-based Optical Networks

Optical buffer is one of the key elements to resolve high traffic contention in transparent optical networks. Optical buffer can be implemented by a set of long enough fiber delay lines which intentionally delay the blocked burst during the contention time. There are several types of optical buffers showing distinctive features. This paper proposes a cost-effective buffered optical switching node combined with the advantages of buffers. This paper also proposes a service differentiation mechanism based on the proposed buffer. Simulation results present that the diverse service requirements can be satisfied in terms of burst blocking probability and buffering delay time