Cost-effective WDM backbone network design with OXCs of different bandwidth granularities

We investigate the design of a WDM backbone network with optical cross-connects (OXCs) of different switching granularities to reduce the network-wide OXC port cost. We enhance our graph model proposed (Zhu et al., 2003), and the extended graph model can represent different node architectures in which a node may have multiple OXCs with different switching granularities simultaneously. Based on this model, we propose a provisioning algorithm for a single connection and a framework for network design, which can intelligently determine the type of OXCs at each node according to the traffic so that the benefit of different types of OXCs can be utilized. Numerical examples are presented showing that granularity-heterogeneous networks are more cost-effective than granularity-homogeneous networks.