Dimensioning and expansion algorithm for WDM networks under traffic growth

We consider the problem of dimensioning and expansion of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks, taking in to account the fact that traffic demand is growing with time. It is known that such networks are operating in non-steady states, and absorption probabilities should be used to dimension the network instead of traditional blocking probabilities. In this paper, we first propose a numerical technique, based on a discrete-time Markov chain model of a WDM link, to compute absorption probabilities for a network given any initial state of link utilizations. We then propose a heuristic algorithm that can be used in dimensioning and expansion of WDM networks. Numerical results show that the heuristic performs close to what is obtained from computationally intensive optimization. Finally, we demonstrate how the proposed algorithm can be used in multi-period network expansion.