Simulation Study of Hop-Based Burst-Cluster Transmission for Delay-Sensitive Traffic in Optical Burst Switching Networks

Abstract

In order to improve the fairness of the burst loss probability in terms of the number of hops, we propose the hop-based burst cluster transmission. In this method, bursts with different numbers of hops are assembled simultaneously, and a hop-based burst cluster is generated so that the bursts in the cluster are arranged in order from the smallest number of hops to the largest one. Then the hop-based burst cluster is transmitted along with multiple control packets. We also clearly specify how this method accommodates delay-sensitive traffic. We evaluate by Monte Carlo simulation the performance of the proposed method for delay-sensitive traffic in a uni-directional ring network. Numerical examples show that the proposed method not only improves the fairness of the burst loss probability but also decreases the overall burst loss probability significantly. Moreover, it is shown that the proposed method can provide acceptable delays for all delay-sensitive traffic.