Hybrid graph-based multicast traffic grooming in metro networks with quality-of-transmission considerations

This paper investigates the problem of multicast traffic grooming in optical networks utilizing a novel grooming approach that is based on the routing/grooming of multicast calls on hybrid graphs (HGs). HGs are constructed dynamically upon the arrival of each multicast call, in such a way that they consist of both the available physical links and the logical links with available capacity. Several schemes were developed for the construction of the HGs, namely the minimum free capacity light-tree first, the maximum free capacity light-tree first, the maximum overlapping light-tree first, the least-used light-tree first, and the most-used light-tree first scheme. Also, a novel hybrid Steiner tree heuristic for routing/grooming on the HGs is presented. The proposed grooming approach exhibits improved performance in terms of blocking probability compared to existing multicast grooming approaches that route/groom multicast calls by considering physical and logical links separately. Furthermore, the physical layer impairments were also considered during the provisioning phase of the newly established light-trees on the HG, in which case the proposed schemes also exhibit improved performance compared to other grooming approaches.