A hybrid buffer structured optical packet switch and its scheduling algorithm are presented for a limited number of tunable wavelength convertors (TWCs) and internal wavelengths. The hybrid buffer consists of the fiber delay line (FDL) buffer and the electronic buffer. With the proposed algorithm, it could lead realizable packet loss reduction that the LAUC-VF algorithm with only the FDL buffer does not reach. Also, we optimized the number of TWCs and internal wavelengths of the hybrid buffer structured OPS. For the fully shared TWC structure, the optimum number of TWCs and internal wavelengths to guarantee minimum packet loss is evaluated to prevent resource waste under the hybrid buffer.

We focus on non-conflicting construction of an optical multistage feedforward network to emulate the N-to-1 output buffer multiplexer by using switched fiber delay line (SDL). In [1], Y.T. Chen et al. presented a sufficient condition (an upper bound) for the number of delay lines required for such a multiplexer with variable length bursts. In this paper, we first give an improved upper bound. Then we develop a framework to construct an arrival case of bursts which can be used to achieve a necessary condition (a lower bound). These results are further extended to the feedforward construction of N-to-N output buffer switch. Through simulation and performance comparison, we find that the new bounds can significantly decrease the hardware cost for constructing both the feedforward SDL-based multiplexer and output buffer switch while still provide the same performance as that of the old ones.

In an effort to reduce switch cost, we present the optimum numbers of tunable wavelength converters (TWCs) and internal wavelengths required for contention resolution of asynchronous and variable length packets, in the optical packet switch (OPS) with the shared fiber delay line (FDL) buffer. To optimize TWCs and internal wavelengths related to OPS design cost, we proposed a scheduling algorithm for the limited TWCs and internal wavelengths. For three TWC alternatives (not shared, partially shared, and fully shared cases), the optimum numbers of TWCs and internal wavelengths to guarantee minimum packet loss are evaluated to prevent resource waste. Under a given load, TWCs and internal wavelengths could be significantly reduced, guaranteeing the same packet loss as the performance of an OPS with full TWCs and internal wavelengths.

Optical Burst Switching (OBS) has been developed as an efficient switching technique to exploit the capacity provided by Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) transmission technology for the next generation optical Internet. One critical design issue in OBS is how to provide Quality-of-Service (QoS) on optical networks. In order to provide the service differentiation, we propose in this paper a buffer allocation algorithm to schedule bursts at the edge OBS nodes, a bandwidth allocation algorithm and a Fiber Delay Line (FDL) allocation algorithm to schedule bursts at the core OBS nodes. We also introduce a new burst assembly technique in which the burst is generated either when the sum of the collected packet sizes reaches the maximum threshold or when the burst assembling time reaches the timeout limit. Our simulation results show that the proposed algorithms achieve the controllable burst loss probability for different service classes. The bandwidth allocation algorithm performs very well at the core OBS nodes in terms of the low loss probability.

We propose an optical packet switch (OPS) using a hybrid buffer structure for the contention resolution of asynchronous variable length packets. The hybrid buffer consists of a fiber delay line (FDL) buffer as the prime buffer and a shared electronic buffer as the supplementary buffer. For the performance evaluation, a modified void filling scheduling algorithm that can be applied to the OPS was proposed. Simulation results show that the use of the electronic buffer together with the FDL buffer significantly reduce the number of FDLs required for contention resolution and considerably lower packet loss.

The conservative mode and the greedy mode scheduling algorithms for OBS switch with shared buffer are presented and discussed. Their performance is evaluated by computer simulations, as well as that of the greedy mode with void-filling algorithm. Simulation results show that the conservative mode and the greedy mode have different characteristics under different input load. The greedy mode and the conservative mode are more applicable in a real system than that with void-filling, owing to their lower computational complexity and FIFO characteristic. Finally, a composite algorithm integrated by the conservative mode and the greedy mode is proposed, which is adapted to the input load with the help of an input load monitor. The simulation results reveal that it has favorable performance under different load.