The effect of wavelength advertisement on the performance of an optical routing protocol

This paper investigates the efficiency of wavelength selection in an optical network when it is conducted without knowledge of wavelength utilization, and compares it to the case when switches exchange wavelength availability through a routing protocol such as OSPR. We describe a series of experiments to determine the effect of wavelength advertisement on connection blocking probability in heterogeneous networks consisting of both wavelength converter and nonconverter switches. Based on these experiments, we describe some consequences of advertising wavelength availability, and quantify when it is advantageous to advertise wavelength availability within the routing protocol.