Design of the optical path layer in multiwavelength cross-connected networks

We discuss the wavelength requirement for optical networks based on wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM). A mathematical model, to represent the routing and wavelength assignment in optical networks with or without wavelength conversion, is described, and metrics are defined to express the performance. A new heuristic for routing and wavelength assignment is proposed and compared with the Dijkstra algorithm and with a solution based on integer linear programming. The different techniques are applied to a variety of network examples with different traffic loads.