High-performance multicasting schemes in Optical Packet Switched networks

Current trends in communications indicate that multicasting is becoming increasingly popular and important in networking applications. Since multicasting can be supported more efficiently in optical domain by utilizing the inherent light-splitting capacity of optical devices, such as optical splitters, than by copying data in electronic domain, issues concerning running multicast sessions in the all-optical networks have received much attention in recent years. In this paper, different multicasting schemes and their performance in the Optical Packet Switched networks are investigated, including the parallel mode, serial mode, and hybrid mode multicasting schemes. Computer simulation results show that compared with the parallel-mode and serial-mode multicasting schemes, hybrid-mode multicasting scheme is the best way to deliver multicast sessions in the Optical Packet Switched networks due to its highest performance.