Path Protection in Translucent WDM Optical Networks

Translucent WDM networks are receiving attention as longhaul back bone networks. One important aspect of such networks that has not received attention is the possibility of cycles in the path of a translucent network. This is the first work on implementing path protection in translucent networks, considering the possibility of cycles. Two formulations have been proposed here for dynamic lightpath allocation. The first is more comprehensive but may take an unacceptably long time. The second formulation is very fast but, in general, has slightly worse performance. We have studied the performances of these formulations using a number of well-known networks.