Achieving locally minimal burst blocking in OBS networks with delayed scheduling

This paper deals with the burst scheduling problem in bufferless, burst-switched WDM networks. We present a control architecture and an optimal online scheduling algorithm that achieve theoretically minimal burst blocking in OBS core nodes. Using simulation, we evaluate the blocking benefit of optimal delayed scheduling over simple first-come-first serve scheduling. We find that the reduction in blocking that can be realized from minimal-loss scheduling depends strongly on the variability of input burst lengths, ranging from no benefit for constant burst length to a reduction of an order of magnitude for highly variable burst lengths.