On optimal traffic grooming in WDM rings

Abstract

We consider the problem of designing a virtual topology to minimize electronic routing, that is, grooming traffic, in wavelength routed optical rings. We present a new framework consisting of a sequence of bounds, both upper and lower, in which each successive bound is at least as strong as the previous one. The successive bounds take larger amounts of computation to evaluate, and the number of bounds to be evaluated for a given problem instance is only limited by the computational power available. The bounds are based on decomposing the ring into sets of nodes arranged in a path, and adopting the locally optimal topology within each set. Our approach can be applied to many virtual topology problems on rings. The upper bounds we obtain also provide a useful series of heuristic solutions.