Hybrid Contention Resolution in Optical Switching Fabric with QoS traffic’

This paper describes an optical switching fabric which solves contention in a hybrid context, by exploiting both time and wavelength domains through wavelength converters and electronic queues. The relationships between the hybrid nature of the switch and the quality of service requirements of traffic are investigated. Different buffer solutions are proposed depending on the employment of different lasers, possibly with tunable capabilities. The main outcomes of the paper suggest criteria to design feasible high capacity optical switching fabrics, suitable for next generation network, in synergy with present day technology constraints and QoS requirements. The proposed solutions show how the choices in terms of hardware equipment and packet scheduling will influence the main performance figures, that is packet loss, average delay and optical transparency.