Supporting bursty traffic with bandwidth guarantee in WDM distribution networks

This paper presents new research results of the DARPA-funded ONRAMP consortium on the next generation Internet to study efficient WDM-based network architectures and protocols for supporting broadband services in regional access networks. In particular, we present new efficient scheduling algorithms for bandwidth sharing in WDM distribution networks. The current ONRAMP distribution network architecture has a tree topology with each leaf node (e.g., a router or workstation) sharing access to the root node of the tree, which corresponds to an access node in the feeder network. Our model allows a leaf node to use one or more fixed-tuned or tunable transceivers; moreover, different leaf nodes can support different subsets of wavelengths depending on their expected traffic volumes. An important goal of ONRAMP is to support bandwidth-on-demand services with QoS guarantee over WDM. As a first step toward this goal, we have developed several fast scheduling algorithms for flexible bandwidth reservations in a WDM distribution network. The scheduling algorithms can provably guarantee any bandwidth reservations pattern that does not overbook network resources, i.e., bandwidth reservation (throughput) up to 100% network capacity can be supported.