Profitable Connection Assignment for Incremental traffic in All-Optical WDM Networks

All-optical WDM networks are fast becoming the choice for future wide-area backbone networks. In this paper, we investigate the online RWA (Routing and Wavelength Assignment) problem for incremental connection requests in all-optical Wavelength-Division-Multiplexed networks, with the objective of maximizing the profit that can be made. Specifically, each connection request between a pair of nodes in the network is associated with an earning, which can be obtained by satisfying the requested connection. To establish a connection, a path through the network is found and the same wavelength which is free on all the links on that path, is assigned . Each wavelength on a link is associated with a cost of using that wavelength on that link. We assume that the connection requests come in one by one(incrementally) and once a connection request is satisfied, the connection stays for a long period of time. We propose heuristics which try to satisfy the incremental connection requests, as they arrive, possibly by re-routing the existing connections in the network, in a 1 manner which maximizes the overall profit (earnings costs) made from the network. The heuristics are then compared with a profit maximizing heuristic, which does not re-route any existing connections.