A novel load-balanced fixed routing (LBFR) algorithm for wavelength routed optical networks

In the wavelength-routed optical transport networks, fixed shortest path routing is one of major lightpath service provisioning strategies, which shows simplicity in network control and operation. Specifically, once a shortest route is found for a node pair, the route is always used for any future lightpath service provisioning, which therefore does not require network control and management system to maintain any active network-wide link state database. On the other hand, the fixed shortest path routing strategy suffers from the disadvantage of unbalanced network traffic load distribution and network congestion because it keeps on employing the same fixed shortest route between each pair of nodes. To avoid the network congestion and meanwhile retain the operational simplicity, in this study we develop a Load-Balanced Fixed Routing (LBFR) algorithm. Through a training process based on a forecasted network traffic load matrix, the proposed algorithm finds a fixed (or few) route(s) for each node pair and employs the fixed route(s) for lightpath service provisioning. Different from the fixed shortest path routes between node pairs, these routes can well balance traffic load within the network when they are used for lightpath service provisioning. Compared to the traditional fixed shortest path routing algorithm, the LBFR algorithm can achieve much better lightpath blocking performance according to our simulation and analytical studies. Moreover, the performance improvement is more significant with the increase of network nodal degree.