Design of logical topologies: a linear formulation for wavelength-routed optical networks with no wavelength changers

We consider the problem of constructing logical topologies over a wavelength-routed optical network with no wavelength changers. We present a general linear formulation which considers routing traffic demands, and routing and assigning wavelengths to lightpaths, as a combined optimization problem. The formulation also takes into account the maximum number of hops a lightpath is permitted to take, multiple logical links in the logical topology, multiple physical links in the physical topology, and symmetry/asymmetry restrictions in designing logical topologies. The objective is to minimize congestion. We show by examples how equality and inequality logical degree constraints have a bearing on congestion. We prove that, under certain conditions, having equality degree constraints with multiple edges allowed in the design of logical topologies does not affect congestion. This helps in reducing the dimensionality of the search space and hence speeds up the search for an optimal solution of the linear formulation. We solve the linear formulation for small examples and show the tradeoff between congestion, number of wavelengths available and the maximum number of hops a lightpath is allowed to take. For large networks, we solve the linear formulation by relaxing the integer constraints. We develop topology design algorithms for large networks based on rounding the solutions obtained by solving the relaxed problem. Since the whole problem is linearizable, the solution obtained by relaxation of the integer constraints yields a lower bound on congestion. This is useful in comparing the efficiency of our heuristic algorithms. Following Bienstock and Gunluk (1995), we introduce a cutting plane which helps in obtaining better lower bounds on congestion and also enables us to reduce the previously obtained upper bounds on congestion.