A Multi Objective Evolutionary Algorithm Based Approach for Traffic Grooming, Routing and Wavelength Assignment in Optical WDM Networks

In the wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical networks, user's requirement is much less (in Mbps range) than the capacity of a wavelength channel (in Gbps range) and number of wavelength channels is limited in a fiber due to several constraints. Each wavelength channel between end nodes requires a pair of transmitter and receiver for digital to optical conversion. In order to decrease the cost of network resources (bandwidth, transceivers, etc.), it has become necessary to groom or multiplex traffic request efficiently over the given network topology. Most of work found in the literatures focus on single objective either maximize throughput or minimize transceivers or delay. In this study, we have presented a multi objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA) based approach which is capable of optimizing multiple objectives i. e. throughput, transceiver requirement and intermediate propagation delay simultaneously. The performance of our approach has been evaluated through extensive simulation on different sets of traffic demands with different bandwidth granularities under various network topologies. The efficacy of our proposed approach has been established by comparing its performance with respect to existing algorithms.