Sparse-partial wavelength conversion in wavelength-routed all-optical networks

Wavelength conversion has been shown as one of the key techniques that can improve the blocking performance in a wavelength-routed all-optical network. Given that wavelength converters nowadays are still very expensive, how to make effective use of the limited number of wavelength converters becomes an important issue. In this paper, we propose a novel sparse-partial wavelength conversion (SPWC) architecture with the inherent flexibility that can facilitate network carriers to migrate the optical backbone to support wavelength conversion. We demonstrate that this architecture can significantly save the number of wavelength converters while still achieving excellent blocking performance. We further investigate the wavelength converter placement problem. Simulation results indicate that, with appropriate wavelength assignment and wavelength converter placement scheme, the performance of the wavelength-routed all-optical network with only 1-5% of wavelength conversion capability is very close to that of the networks with full-complete wavelength conversion capability.