Performance analysis of the Rainbow WDM optical network prototype

Rainbow is a prototype optical metropolitan area network (MAN) developed at IBM. It employs wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) on a fiber-optic passive-star network topology, with each station equipped with a laser, which is fixed tuned to its own unique wavelength, and a Fabry-Perot filter, which is tunable across all wavelengths. The paper presents a model and analysis of the protocol used in the Rainbow prototype using the equilibrium point analysis (EPA) technique. The authors examine the system´s throughput and how it is affected by various system parameters such as message arrival rate, message length, and timeout duration. They show that, for a given arrival rate, there is a timeout duration that will yield the optimal throughput. The analytical results are verified by simulation