Quality of service in optical packet switched DWDM transport networks

For support of multimedia applications in Internet, at least four service classes are normally outlined. We expect optical packet switching to be of special interest in terabit capacity networks with a high number of wavelengths. Our analysis shows that when the wavelength dimension is used for contention resolution, and number of wavelengths is 32 or higher, node-delay is negligible. However buffering in optical packet switches is a scarce resource which use should be minimized. Based on the requirement of the future network, and on our packet switch performance analysis, we suggest reducing the number of service classes to two: A normal class (NCT) with medium low packet loss and a low need for buffering, and a high class (HCT) with a minimum of packet loss. Performance of a buffer reservation scheme is analyzed by simulation. Assuming the network of today with 10 % HCT traffic, assigning four buffer inputs to the HCT traffic, a difference in optical packet loss ratio of three orders of magnitude can be obtained. The same difference in optical packet loss ratio can be obtained if 50 % HCT traffic is assumed (network of tomorrow), by assigning a higher number of buffer inputs.