Traffic analysis and network protection in photonic switched optical metro-access networks

Metropolitan Access Optical Networks having optical nodes based on emergent technologies of optical packet/burst switching (OPS/OBS) are analyzed in terms of performance and sensitivity to link failure. Through the use of analytical modeling and computer simulations we consider ring and mesh (Manhattan Street type) topologies in conventional and innovative configurations, to evaluate the impact of link failure in each topology. We use parameters such as average number of hops and packet loss fraction to evaluate network performance. It is observed that mesh topologies with triple-connection optical nodes (3 × 3) are the most robust; under link failure the impact of lost data is minimum in this case as compared with the other configurations and topologies considered.