Performance analysis of a core node equipped with wavelength converter pool in an Optical Burst Switched network

A performance analysis of a core node in an OBS network having wavelength converters in the node resources is presented. The analysis assumes that the wavelength converters are deployed at the input ports of the node such that the node may have variable wavelength conversion capability. This means that the node may have no, partial or full conversion capability. The no and partial wavelength conversion is imitated by modeling each output port in the node as an M/M/w/w queue with limited server accessibility. Two performance measures are derived from the model; namely, the steady state throughput and the average burst loss probability assuming Poisson traffic arrivals. In addition, a simulation work is performed in order to validate the results of our proposed model. After taking into consideration the cost of the wavelength converters, optimum values for the wavelength conversion capability in the node, which lead to minimum burst loss probability, are reached for different traffic conditions.