Deflection routing effectiveness in full-optical IP packet switching networks

 This work is based on the optical switch architecture proposed in [5][6] to handle variable-length packets such as IP datagrams. This optical switch is based on an AWG device to route packets and is equipped with a fiber delay-line stage as optical input buffer. Unfortunately, this switch would require considerable buffering capability to achieve acceptable performance. A possible solution, studied in this paper, is to implement efficient packet deflection inside the optical network as a mean for solving packet contentions on outputs of optical switches. Thus, optical transport networks have been simulated to assess deflection effectiveness, based on a traffic model adherent to real IP traffic measurements. Full-mesh and wheel network topologies have been considered, comparing results to assess deflection effectiveness.