Adaptive MCRWA strategies to reduce blocking probability in sparse splitting WDM networks

Given a sparse splitting WDM network, a set of available wavelengths, we investigate the problem of provisioning a set of multicast requests simultaneously with the objective of minimizing the blocking probability. Two blocking policies are taken into account: full blocking probability (FB) and partial blocking probability (PB). As the problem is NP-hard, we introduce several efficient adaptive heuristic strategies to compute approximate solutions using light-hierarchy, a recently optimal route in sparse splitting configurations. Extensive simulations reveal that our proposed strategies outperform static approaches whatever FB or PB policy is taken into account. The results also show that it is more advantageous to provision multiple multicast communications with light-hierarchies, since they are able to accommodate more requests (or destinations) compared with the light-tree solutions.