Load Balancing Routing Policies in Wavelength-routed WDM Networks

In order to use WDM networks efficiently and effectively, a lightpath is dynamically established upon the arrival of a connection request. The dynamic routing algorithms are usually classified into adaptive and alternative schemes based on whether the chosen routes are predetermined or not. In this work, we propose a new weighted function for link cost assignments. The purpose of the cost function is to differentiate network in different traffic load. Based on the link cost assignments, one adaptive routing algorithm referred to as EWSCP and one alternative routing named LAPA are presented in the paper. Simulation results reveal that EWSCP can achieve lowest call blocking probability than conventional adaptive routing schemes. On the other hand, the low overhead LAPA can obtain performance approaching to adaptive routing. Key-Words: WDM Network, Adaptive Routing, Alternative Routing, and Exponential Link-cost Function.