A Survey of Virtual Topology Design Algorithms for Wavelength Routed Optical Networks

• Authors: Rudra Dutta;George N. Rouskas
• Venue: A Survey of Virtual Topology Design Algorithms for Wavelength Routed Optical Networks
• Year: 1999

In the past few years, there has been growing interest in wide area ``All Optical Networks'''' with {\em wavelength division multiplexing\/} (WDM), using {\em wavelength routing}. Due to the huge bandwidth inherent in optical fiber, and the use of WDM to match user and network bandwidths, the wavelength routing architecture is an attractive candidate for future backbone transport networks. A {\em virtual topology\/} over a WDM WAN consists of clear channels between nodes called {\em lightpaths}, with traffic carried from source to destination without electronic switching ``as far as possible'''', but some electronic switching may be performed. Virtual topology design aims at combining the best of optical switching and electronic routing abilities. Designing a virtual topology on a physical network consists of deciding the lightpaths to be set up in terms of their source and destination nodes and wavelength assignment. In this survey we first describe the context and motivations of the virtual topology design problem. We provide a complete formulation of the problem, describe and compare the formulations and theoretical results as well as algorithms, heuristics and some results in the current literature in the field. The reconfigurability issue, which is another attractive characteristic of optical networks, is also discussed and the literature surveyed. This survey is restricted to transport networks with wavelength routing. Similar virtual topology problems also arise in multihop broadcast local area optical networks, but this work does not directly apply to them and corresponding literature is not included in this survey. This survey also relates to the design of a static topology, not one in which individual lightpaths are set up and torn down in response to traffic demand.