Optimization in Telecommunication Networks

Network design and network synthesis have been the classical optimization problems intelecommunication for a long time. In the recent past, there have been many technologicaldevelopments such as digitization of information, optical networks, internet, and wirelessnetworks. These developments have led to a series of new optimization problems. Thismanuscript gives an overview of the developments in solving both classical and moderntelecom optimization problems.We start with a short historical overview of the technological developments. Then,the classical (still actual) network design and synthesis problems are described with anemphasis on the latest developments on modelling and solving them. Classical results suchas Menger’s disjoint paths theorem, and Ford-Fulkerson’s max-flow-min-cut theorem, butalso Gomory-Hu trees and the Okamura-Seymour cut-condition, will be related to themodels described. Finally, we describe recent optimization problems such as routing andwavelength assignment, and grooming in optical networks.operations research and management science;

Design and provisioning of WDM networks for traffic grooming

Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) is the most viable technique for utilizing the enormous amounts of bandwidth inherently available in optical fibers. However, the bandwidth offered by a single wavelength in WDM networks is on the order of tens of Gigabits per second, while most of the applications\u27 bandwidth requirements are still subwavelength. Therefore, cost-effective design and provisioning of WDM networks require that traffic from different sessions share bandwidth of a single wavelength by employing electronic multiplexing at higher layers. This is known as traffic grooming. Optical networks supporting traffic grooming are usually designed in a way such that the cost of the higher layer equipment used to support a given traffic matrix is reduced. In this thesis, we propose a number of optimal and heuristic solutions for the design and provisioning of optical networks for traffic grooming with an objective of network cost reduction. In doing so, we address several practical issues. Specifically, we address the design and provisioning of WDM networks on unidirectional and bidirectional rings for arbitrary unicast traffic grooming, and on mesh topologies for arbitrary multipoint traffic grooming. In multipoint traffic grooming, we address both multicast and many-to-one traffic grooming problems. We provide a unified frame work for optimal and approximate network dimensioning and channel provisioning for the generic multicast traffic grooming problem, as well as some variants of the problem. For many-to-one traffic grooming we propose optimal as well as heuristic solutions. Optimal formulations which are inherently non-linear are mapped to an optimal linear formulation. In the heuristic solutions, we employ different problem specific search strategies to explore the solution space. We provide a number of experimental results to show the efficacy of our proposed techniques for the traffic grooming problem in WDM networks

Optical control plane: theory and algorithms

In this thesis we propose a novel way to achieve global network information dissemination in which some wavelengths are reserved exclusively for global control information exchange. We study the routing and wavelength assignment problem for the special communication pattern of non-blocking all-to-all broadcast in WDM optical networks. We provide efficient solutions to reduce the number of wavelengths needed for non-blocking all-to-all broadcast, in the absence of wavelength converters, for network information dissemination. We adopt an approach in which we consider all nodes to be tap-and-continue capable thus studying lighttrees rather than lightpaths. To the best of our knowledge, this thesis is the first to consider “tap-and-continue” capable nodes in the context of conflict-free all-to-all broadcast. The problem of all to-all broadcast using individual lightpaths has been proven to be an NP-complete problem [6]. We provide optimal RWA solutions for conflict-free all-to-all broadcast for some particular cases of regular topologies, namely the ring, the torus and the hypercube. We make an important contribution on hypercube decomposition into edge-disjoint structures. We also present near-optimal polynomial-time solutions for the general case of arbitrary topologies. Furthermore, we apply for the first time the “cactus” representation of all minimum edge-cuts of graphs with arbitrary topologies to the problem of all-to-all broadcast in optical networks. Using this representation recursively we obtain near-optimal results for the number of wavelengths needed by the non-blocking all-to-all broadcast. The second part of this thesis focuses on the more practical case of multi-hop RWA for non- blocking all-to-all broadcast in the presence of Optical-Electrical-Optical conversion. We propose two simple but efficient multi-hop RWA models. In addition to reducing the number of wavelengths we also concentrate on reducing the number of optical receivers, another important optical resource. We analyze these models on the ring and the hypercube, as special cases of regular topologies. Lastly, we develop a good upper-bound on the number of wavelengths in the case of non-blocking multi-hop all-to-all broadcast on networks with arbitrary topologies and offer a heuristic algorithm to achieve it. We propose a novel network partitioning method based on “virtual perfect matching” for use in the RWA heuristic algorithm

Wavelength assignment in all-optical networks for mesh topologies

All-Optical Networks employing Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) are believed to be the next generation networks that can meet the ever-increasing demand for bandwidth of the end users. This thesis presents some new heuristics for wavelength assignment and converter placement in mesh topologies. Our heuristics try to assign the wavelengths in an efficient manner that results in very low blocking probability. We propose novel static and dynamic assignment schemes that outperform the assignments reported in the literature even when converters are used. The proposed on-line scheme called Round-Robin assignment outperforms previously proposed strategies such as first-fit and random assignment schemes. The performance improvement obtained with the proposed static assignments is very significant when compared with the dynamic schemes. We designed and developed a simulator in the C language that supports the 2D mesh topology with DWDM. We ran extensive simulations and compared our heuristics with those reported in the literature. We have examined converter placement in mesh topologies and proposed that placing converters at the center yields better results than uniform placement when dimension order routing is employed. We introduced a new concept called wavelength assignment with second trial that results in extremely low blocking probabilities when compared to schemes based on a single trial. Our proposed schemes are simple to implement and do not add to the cost. Thus we conclude that wavelength assignment plays more significant role in affecting the blocking probability than wavelength converters. We further conclude that static schemes without converters could easily outperform dynamic schemes thus resulting in great savings

TOPOLOGICAL PLANNING OF COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

In this paper, we concentrate on topological planning process of large-scale communication networks such as those used by telecom operators. Such networks are usually spread over large geographical area, and finding an optimal topology is very important part of the planning process. Network equipment used in such network is very expensive, and two connection points can be hundreds of kilometers apart. These networks, in most cases, form a backbone network of telecom operator, meaning that majority of traffic is carried through high-speed communication links of such network. Any cable cuts or equipment malfunctions could result in huge data losses. Therefore, such networks require high degree of availability and fault resistance, which must be considered during the planning process. Network topology providing fault resistance should offer at least two separate communication paths between any pair of network nodes. Most important issue in network topology planning is finding topology with lowest possible overall network price, while keeping all requirements (such as fault tolerance, availability, maximal number of hops, maximal blocking probability etc.) satisfied. Network design process can be divided into three stages. First step is making decisions about which network elements (nodes, existing edges) should be included in a backbone network (for instance, one of sub-problems appearing in this phase is facility location problem). Second step includes selection of network topology, so that all elements selected in first step will be interconnected satisfying given requirements. Last phase is used to determine node and link capacities needed for successful traffic transport as well as routings of traffic demands, including protection. Depending on technologies used in network, different routing and protection mechanisms, as well as specific topology models, can be used (e.g. SDH/WDM SHR, mesh, dual-homing etc.)

Virtual Topology Reconfrigation of WDM Optical Network with Minimum Physical Node

This paper review the reconfiguration of high capacity WDM optical Network, messages are carried in all optical form using light paths. The set of semi-permanent light paths which are set up in the network may be viewed as a virtual topology by higher layers such as SONET, ATM and IP. Reconfiguration is to charge in virtual topology to meet traffic pattern in high layers. It provides a trade off between objective value and the no. of changes to the virtual topology. In another study Objective is to design the logical topology & routing Algorithm on physical topology, so as to minimize the net work congestion while constraining the average delay seen by source destination pair and the amount of processing required at the nodes. Failure handling in WDM Networks is of prime importance due to the nature and volume of traffic, these network carry, failure detection is usually achieved by exchanging control messages among nodes with time out mechanism. Newer and more BW thirsty applications emerging on the horizon and WDM is to leveraging the capabilities of the optical fiber Wavelength  routing  is  the  ability  to  switch  a  signal  at intermediate  nodes  in  a  WDM  network  based  on  their wavelength. Virtual topology can be reconfigured when necessary to improve performance. To create the virtual topology different from the physical topology of the underlying network, is the ability of wavelength routing WDM. Keywords: WDM, Physical Topology, Virtual Topology and Reconfiguratio