Hybrid wavelength routed and optical packet switched ring networks for the metropolitan area network

Increased data traffic in the metropolitan area network calls for new network architectures. This paper evaluates optical ring architectures based on optical packet switching, wavelength routing, and hybrid combinations of the two concepts. The evaluation includes overall throughput and fairness aspects in both uniform and unbalanced traffic scenarios, for both Poisson and bursty input traffic. Simulations show a trade-off between performance and complexity. Whilst the static wavelength routed optical network is a good solutions for uniform traffic, the proposed hybrid architectures are more attractive when traffic is unbalanced.