Lightpath bundling and anycast switching: A good team for multilayer optical networks

This paper proposes the combination of the so-called lightpath bundling (LB) and anycast switching techniques, as a simple and effective option to increase the performances of multilayer optical networks. LB means that the lightpaths between two nodes are treated as a single connection of aggregated capacity. Anycast switching is proposed for implementing a per-packet-granularity balancing of the traffic among the lightpaths in the same bundle. A simple anycast switching method is proposed for Virtual Output Queueing (VOQ) switches. Also, the LBA-MPA (Lightpath Bundling Aware-Multilayer Planning Algorithm) algorithm is presented to plan the multilayer network exploiting the LB and anycast switching combined benefits. Results obtained suggest that very significant performance improvements can be obtained in existing multilayer networks with minor changes. Finally, the paper discusses related fields open to be further investigated.