Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.Recent advances in fiber optics technology have enabled extremely high-speed transport of different forms of data, on multiple wavelengths of an optical fiber, using Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM). It has now become possible to deploy high-speed, multi-service networks using DWDM technology. As the amount of traffic carried has increased, any single failure can be catastrophic. Survivability becomes indispensable in such networks. Therefore, it is imperative to design networks that can quickly and efficiently recover from failures. Most research to date in survivable optical network design and operation focuses on single link failures, however, the occurrence of multiple-link failures are not uncommon in networks today. Multi-link failure scenarios can arise out of two common situations. First, an arbitrary link may fail in the network, and before that link can be repaired, another link fails, thus creating a multi-link failure sequence. Secondly, it might happen in practice that two distinct physical links may be routed via the same common duct or physical channel. A failure at that shared physical location creates a logical multiple-link failure. In this dissertation, we conduct an intensive study of mechanisms for achieving survivability in optical networks. From the many mechanisms presented in the literature the focus of this work was on protection as a mechanism of survivability. In particular four protection schemes were simulated and their results analyzed to ascertain which protection scheme achieves the best survivability in terms of number of wavelengths recovered for a specific failure scenario. A model network was chosen and the protection schemes were evaluated for both single and multiple link and node failures. As an indicator of the performance of these protection schemes over a period of time average service availability and average loss in traffic for each protection scheme was also simulated. Further simulations were conducted to observe the percentage link and node utilization of each scheme hence allowing us to determine the strain each protection scheme places on network resources when traffic in the network increases. Finally based on these simulation results, recommendations of which protection scheme and under what failure conditions they should be used are made.Recent advances in fiber optics technology have enabled extremely high-speed transpor
