A novel load balancing strategy in wavelength-routed optical network

This paper studies the load balancing strategies in wavelength-routed optical network and a novel load balancing strategy is proposed. The objective of the proposed strategy not only reduces the congestion, but also improves the load distribution state. In addition, the proposed strategy also supports different Classes of Service (CoS). To describe the load distribution state, a variable named the load distribution variance (LDV) is introduced. By reducing the LDV, both congestion and load distribution state will be optimized. Moreover, by dividing the wavelength sets into several separate subsets according to the priorities of connection requests, the strategy can also support different classes of service. Finally, in the network simulation part, the shortest path algorithm with and without adopting the proposed strategy are compared and the numerical results show both the congestion and load distribution state improve by adopting the novel load balancing strategy we reported in this paper.