Multipath Routing and Wavelength Assignment Technique in Optical WDM Mesh Networks

A routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) technique for supporting multipath traffic in optical wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) mesh network is proposed in this paper. The network can be preceded by accomplishing two processes: one is establishing connection node and the second one is identifying the multipath and assigning wavelength. The connection node is selected based on the load and current traffic-carrying capacity of that node. During wavelength allocation mechanism, cost function is considered as the major criterion. Based on the cost involved in every path, the wavelengths are selected such that wavelength with the minimum cost is allocated to that particular path. This technique efficiently allocates the wavelength to the selected multiple paths and the traffic is routed to the destination using multiple paths with wavelength allocation. For simulation, NS2 simulator is used by applying the optical WDM network simulator patch. The proposed multipath RWA technique is compared with the existing RWA technique. We achieved a throughput of 12,625 packets for ten numbers of wavelengths. But the existing approach achieved a throughput of 10,189 packets only for the same numbers of wavelengths. Channel utilization is more, and delay is less compared with the existing technique. Hence, the proposed method is very efficient, since the router effectively routes the traffic within the network. © 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston 2017.