Wavelength requirements of all-optical networks

Abstract

All-optical networks are networks for which all data paths r emain optical from input to output. With rapid development of optical technology, such networks are a viable choice for the high speed wide area networks of the future. Wavelength division multiple access (WDMA) currently provides the most mature technology for all-optical networks. We discuss a class of WDMA networks that are homogeneous in the sense that each node contains both an input/output port and a switch. We focus on the permutation routing problem and first present a lower bound on the number of wavelengths required for permutation routing as a function of the size and degree of the network. We use particular topologies, including the multistage perfect shuffle, the Debruijn, and the hypercube , to find achievable upper bounds on the number of required wavelengths.