Near-optimal approaches for shared-path protection in WDM mesh networks

This paper investigates the problem of dynamic shared-path-protected lightpath provisioning in optical mesh networks employing wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM). We prove that the problem of finding an eligible pair of working and backup paths for a new lightpath request requiring shared-path protection under the current network state is NP-complete. We develop a heuristic, called CAFES, to compute a feasible solution and an algorithm, called OPT, to optimize resource consumption for a given solution. The merits of our approaches are that they capture the essence of shared-path protection and approach to optimal solutions without enumerating paths. We evaluate the effectiveness of our heuristics and the results are found to be promising.