Abstract: We consider the offline version of the routing and
wavelength assignment (RWA) problem in transparent all-optical
networks. In such networks and in the absence of regenerators,
the signal quality of transmission degrades due to physical layer
impairments. Because of certain physical effects, routing choices
made for one lightpath affect and are affected by the choices made
for the other lightpaths. This interference among the lightpaths
is particularly difficult to formulate in an offline algorithm since,
in this version of the problem, we start without any established
connections and the utilization of lightpaths are the variables of
the problem.We initially present an algorithm for solving the pure
(without impairments) RWA problem based on a LP-relaxation
formulation that tends to yield integer solutions. Then, we extend
this algorithm and present two impairment-aware (IA) RWA algorithms
that account for the interference among lightpaths in their
formulation. The first algorithm takes the physical layer indirectly
into account by limiting the impairment-generating sources. The
second algorithm uses noise variance-related parameters to directly
account for the most important physical impairments. The
objective of the resulting cross-layer optimization problem is not
only to serve the connections using a small number of wavelengths
(network layer objective), but also to select lightpaths that have
acceptable quality of transmission (physical layer objective).
Simulations experiments using realistic network, physical layer,
and traffic parameters indicate that the proposed algorithms can
solve real problems within acceptable time.
