Study of GMPLS Lightpath Setup over Lambda-Router Networks

Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS) is currently being specified as the control plane for next-generation optical networks. This paper investigates how GMPLS affects the performance of lambda-router networks. Our performance study reveals the advantage of using a fully tunable laser at each source in the presence of a limited number of wavelength converters. We propose an enhancement to GMPLS which allows a lightpath request to crankback to a lambda router that can use a wavelength converter to complete the lightpath setup successfully. This effectively makes the wavelength converters shared across the network. It is shown that crankback provides a significant benefit when fully tunable lasers at the sources are not universally available.