Integrated evaluation of performance and technology

In this paper, we introduce an integrated analysis of quality-of-service (QoS) performance and technology for optical burst switching (OBS) nodes. Such an integrated approach is needed to comprehensively assess OBS nodes as both burst losses and signal degradation limit their maximum achievable throughput. We apply this analysis to the tune-and-select (TAS) node architecture as well as to extensions with fiber delay line (FDL) buffers and with limited tuning range converters. First, we discuss OBS and motivate the need for the proposed integrated analysis. We survey contention resolution schemes for OBS and discuss principal QoS performance results for wavelength conversion and FDL buffering. Also, we describe the basic and extended TAS architectures as well as their key physical limitations regarding maximum number of wavelengths and maximum throughput. For the different node architectures, we then present the results obtained in the integrated analysis. We compare them based on the maximum utilization as well as the maximum effective throughput under dynamic traffic. Finally, we compare the architectures with respect to their normalized cost per terabit per second (Tb/s) and study its sensitivity with respect to the cost ratio of their key components.