Blocking resolution for short flows in optical flow switching networks

A critical issue for optical flow switching (OFS) is the utilization efficiency of network resource for short flow traffic. A flow can be blocked because of destination or path contentions. We propose the distributed Multi-Destination Control Protocol (MDCP) that can reduce blockings. We give a theoretical bound of throughput for MDCP, evaluating the constraint of round-trip-delay to the network throughput. Simulation shows that a throughput of over 80% can be achieved for short flows less than one second, thus opening up the possibility for OFS networks to carry many mass market applications such as video downloads.