Dynamic wavelength allocation and analytical model for flow assignment in optical packet and path integrated networks

A hybrid optical architecture combining path (circuit) and packet switching can be a good candidate for future optical networks because it exploits the best of both worlds. In this paper, we present a control framework called the Dynamic Optical Wavelength and Flow Allocation Framework (DOWFAF), which can dynamically change the ratio of path and packet wavelengths and the flow size threshold in the hybrid path–packet integrated networks in order to balance the utilization of path and packet subnetworks and maximize the ratio of large flows benefiting from the path switching. We propose an analytical model for calculating the flow size threshold and a feedback control for estimating the wavelength allocation ratio for varying traffic. DOWFAF can be implemented by software-defined networking, which is getting a lot of attention recently. We show that DOWFAF can greatly increase the goodput of large Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) flows for a wide range of traffic, while decreasing the cost and the power consumption.