Discrete event simulation of a large OBS network

Optical burst switching (OBS) is a much researched paradigm for the next generation optical Internet. We have made a detailed discrete event simulation model of OBS networks. Among other things our model includes self similar traffic sources, burst assembly with fixed and variable length bursts, burst scheduling, wavelength conversion and fiber delay lines. In this paper we simulate a large optical burst-switched backbone network using the COST 239 network topology that connects 11 European cities. The performance of this realistic network is investigated, mainly by varying the load and the number of channels (lambdas). We propose and evaluate a new method for the utilization of otherwise unused network capacity by very low priority traffic. Other interesting results include how total burst loss increase when high priority bursts are used.