Performance Analysis of WDM Networks with Wavelength Conversion

This paper evaluates a circuit-switched multi-hop WDM network with wavelength conversion by a semi-Markov based approach. The proposed technique provides accurate performance prediction while also preserving model flexibility. Whether the wavelength conversion is beneficial or not depends on many factors. The main concerns considered in this paper are the number of wavelengths, packet generation rate, processing latency, and propagation delay. The network architecture evaluated here is a bidirectional wrap-around mesh. System performance will be measured in terms of network throughput and average packet delay. The results of this paper quantify the magnitude of performance improvement achieved through wavelength conversion.