On the performance of different node configurations in multi-fiber optical packet-switched networks

With the development of optical packet-switching (OPS) technologies, multi-fiber OPS networks will play an important role in the future data transmissions. In such networks, instead of constructing some extremely expensive node configurations with strictly non-blocking switching function, a more practical solution is multi-board switches that contain a number of small-sized switching boards. In this article, we have evaluated the performance of several different multi-board switches, based on the following two main objectives: (i) better understanding the effects of different connection schemes between switching boards and optical buffers and (ii) investigating possible schemes for achieving comparable performance to that of the ideal, strictly non-blocking switches. Extensive simulation results have shown that unlike circuit-switched networks, multi-board OPS cannot easily perform comparably to the strictly non-blocking switch by having slightly more fibers per link. Also, such a problem can be tackled by several different approaches. The most efficient one is to equip the switch with more buffers rather than to increase the switching-board size or to enhance the buffer sharing between different switching boards.