Simplified overflow analysis of an optical burst switch with fibre delay lines

We develop an approximate analytic model of an Optical Burst Switch with share-per-node fibre delay lines and tuneable wavelength converters by employing Equivalent Random Theory, an approach from circuit-switching analysis. Our model is formulated in terms of virtual traffic flows within the switch from which we derive expressions for burst blocking probability, fibre delay line occupancy and mean delay, which we then resolve numerically. Emphasis is on simplicity of the model to achieve good numerical efficiency so that the method can be useful for formulating dimensioning problems for large-scale networks. Solution values from the analysis are compared with discrete-event simulation results.