Path Level Traffic Grooming in WDM Optical Networks

Traffic grooming continues to be a rich area ofresearch in the context of WDM optical networks. Pastresearch studies that focused on improving networkutilization required high speed opticalcross-connects that could switch at the packet orburst level. Such optical technologies are expensiveand hard to fabricate. Recently, there have been someresearch into designing new architectures focused onoptical grooming without using fast optical switches.Such technologies are economical, scalable, useoff-the-shelf components, yet, when interconnected ina novel way provide significant network gain byaggregating traffic at the path level. In this book, a taxonomy and overview of such grooming techniquesis provided. A graph theory based framework to modelpath level aggregation is presented. By using themodel to solve the survivable design and networkdimensioning problem, the trade-offs made bydifferent architectures under different networkscenarios are identified. The ideas proposed in thebook will impact high speed network design and shouldbe especially useful for network service providers,and students, professionals, and researchers workingin the networking field.