A new approach to dimensioning optical networks

A network dimensioning method allocates appropriate capacities to the links based on the network topology and traffic requirements. We introduce the concept of absorption probability instead of blocking probability which is a more appropriate measure to express the grade of service of an optical network, in many cases. Absorption probability can be obtained from transient analysis of a Markov chain. Computation of exact absorption probabilities requires large computing resources and is thus feasible only for small networks. We present a method to approximate the absorption probability of a wavelength-routed network with arbitrary topology and traffic patterns assuming the nodes have full wavelength conversion capability. We show that the approximation method performs well especially in the desired range of absorption probabilities and it is computationally efficient.