A Proactive and Self-Regulated Ant-Based RWA Protocol for All-Optical WDM Networks

Balancing the load among multiple path leads to the degradation in the all-optical WDM networks. It is always desirable to deliver the entire load on a single optimal path depending upon the current network load status. This paper employs the use of ant colony optimization (ACO) for routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) problem of all-optical WDM networks along with survivability. Our algorithm proactively updates the changes in the network status and finds optimal and sub-optimal paths depending upon the number of free wavelengths available per link along the path from source to destination. When a connection request arrives at a node, the data is routed through the readily available optimal path thereby reducing the setup time. Furthermore, the approach is self-regulating i.e. it automatically adapts to traffic load variations across the network. By simulation results, we showed that our proposed protocol has high throughput and bandwidth utilization.