A major challenge in packet-based optical networks is packet contention, which occurs when two or more packets are heading to the same output at the same time. To resolve contention in the optical domain, a fundamental approach is fiber delay-line (FDL) buffering, in which packets can be delayed for a fixed amount of time. In the literature, the performance of FDL buffering has been studied extensively. However, most existing works are based on an assumption that there is only one fiber per link in the network. In this paper, we address the architecture and performance of FDL buffers in packet-based asynchronous multifiber optical networks (PAMFONET), in which each link in the network may consist of multiple optical fibers. We propose a framework for FDL buffers in PAMFONET, in which we provide three essential architectures and corresponding packet scheduling policies. Extensive simulation results show that, with appropriate settings, the same number of FDLs can lead to better performance in multifiber networks than in single-fiber networks. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.#R##N##R##N#(Here we note that such kind of multistage architectures are widely used in design and implementation of FDL buffers [14].
['Tao Zhang']
A framework for fiber delay-line buffers in packet-based asynchronous multifiber optical networks (PAMFONET)