Issues in modelling optical networks
Abstract.
An all-optical network is likely to have two characteristics:
high capacity, and limited flexibility. The high capacity comes about
because optical switches are simple: they have no buffers and no
high-speed per-packet classification, they just redirect beams of light.
The limited flexibility comes about for the same reason; it has the
consequence that neither packet-switched nor circuit-switched network
models are entirely appropriate. In this talk I shall describe several
possible models, which look at routing, multiplexing, and buffering.
The capacity of a burst-switched network
Abstract.
An all-optical network may not have sufficient wavelengths
to be able to assign permanent connections between all pairs of
end-nodes. A possible solution is to interleave data from different
end-nodes on a single wavelength. There are various ways that this
might be achieved, and they may be grouped under the general heading
of burst-switching. It is natural to ask: what is the capacity
of a burst-switched network? This talk describes some mathematical
techniques that may be helpful in answering this question.