Emission and discard priority scheme for optical burst switched networks

A key issue in optical burst switched (OBS) networks is resolving burst contention in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Although deflection routing has been identified as a cost-effective solution, its viability has been questioned. We propose an emission and discard priority (EDP) scheme to alleviate the shortcomings of deflection routing by reducing late packet arrivals and hence improving network goodput. Simulation results show that the deflection with EDP scheme has a lower proportion of late packet arrivals than a basic deflection routing scheme. Furthermore, the deflection with EDP scheme has a higher goodput, when the normalized load is L≥0.7, and a higher efficiency, in terms of goodput per deflection, than the basic deflection routing scheme.