Dimensioning models of shared resources for optical packet switching in unbalanced input/output traffic scenarios

This paper compares selected Optical Packet Switching architectures that use the wavelength conversion technique to solve the packet contention problem. The architectures in question share wavelength converters, which are needed to wavelength translate arriving packets. This paper focuses on two architectures: the Shared Per Output Line (SPOL) and the Shared Per Input Line (SPIL) architectures, in which the wavelength converters are shared per output and input fiber respectively. The performance of the proposed architectures is evaluated for all the balance/unbalance combinations of input/output traffic. Packet loss probability is expressed as a function of the number of wavelength converters used, by means of analytical models validated by simulations. The results obtained show that the SPIL architecture, when compared to the SPOL architecture, allows for greater economies in terms of number of wavelength converters needed. While the performance of the two architectures tends to have similar values in a scenario with unbalanced input traffic and balanced output traffic, in unbalanced output traffic scenarios the SPIL architecture requires about 50% less wavelength converters than the, SPOL architecture does, for a given packet loss probability.