Optimal multicasting in a Multi-Line-Rate Ethernet-over-WDM network

Ethernet is the dominant transport technology for Local Area Networks. Efforts are now under way to use carrier-grade Ethernet in backbone networks of different service providers. With the advent of applications such as IPTV and Video-on-Demand, there is need for techniques to route multicast traffic over the Ethernet backbone networks. Here, we address the problem of Routing and Wavelength Assignment (RWA) of a set of multicast requests in a Multi-Line-Rate Ethernet backbone network with the objective of minimizing the cost of setting up the network, in terms of the Service Provider´s Capital Expenditure (CAPEX). We present an Auxiliary Graph based heuristic algorithm that routes each multicast request on a light-tree structure, and assigns minimum cost wavelengths along the route. We compare the properties of the algorithm to the optimal solution given by a mathematical model formulated as an Integer Linear Program (ILP), and show that they compare very well. We also find that the algorithm is most cost-effective when the incoming requests are processed in descending order of their bandwidth requirements.