A framework for service-guaranteed shared protection in WDM mesh networks

Abstract

In this article a framework for end-to-end service-guaranteed shared protection in dynamic wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) mesh networks, called short leap shared protection (SLSP), is introduced. The idea of SLSP is to divide each working path into several overlapped protection domains, each of which contains a working and protection path pair. In addition to a guaranteed restoration service, SLSP is designed to satisfy the future requirements of wavelength-routed optical mesh networks in scalability, class of service, and capacity efficiency. Tutorial-like discussions are given in the architecture design and signaling mechanisms for implementing the SLSP framework in a dynamic network environment with examples and illustrations. To show that SLSP can improve capacity efficiency, simulations are conducted using four networks (22-, 30-, 79-, 100-node) for a comparative study between ordinary shared protection schemes and SLSP.