Fairness in Zone-Based Algorithms for Dynamic Traffic Grooming in WDM Mesh Networks

Dynamic grooming deals with requests for wavelength allocation based on a dynamic pattern of arrivals in contrast to the situation of static grooming in which the pattern of arrivals must be previously known. Solutions for dynamic grooming typically involve the construction of an auxiliary graph for deciding on the routing and wavelength assignment. An auxiliary graph can represent the network partially leading to scalable solutions; however, a previous proposal employing a reduced auxiliary graph produces blocking that is not fairly distributed among calls. A novel algorithm is thus proposed in this paper for achieving fairness in relation to the blocking of calls. This algorithm uses alternative routing rather than shortest-path routing as well as auxiliary graphs based on the virtual topology. Results reveal a higher degree of fairness obtained by the use of the novel algorithm than by previously proposed algorithms.