Dynamic Anycast Routing and Wavelength Assignment in WDM Networks Using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO)

Ant colony optimization (ACO) is a probabilistic technique used for solving complex computational problems, such as finding optimal routes in networks. It has been proved to perform better than simulated annealing and genetic algorithm approaches for solving dynamic problems. ACO algorithms can quickly adapt to real-time changes in the system. In this paper, we propose an ACO-based algorithm to solve the dynamic anycast routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) problem in wavelength-routed WDM networks. Using extensive simulations, we show that ACO-based anycast RWA significantly reduces blocking probability compared to the fixed shortest-path first (SPF) and other dynamic algorithms.

I. Introduction

Wavelength routing is a promising technology to support high-bandwidth demanding applications on the Internet. It provisions all-optical data paths among the network nodes. Data is transmitted between two nodes using a lightpath, which is uniquely identified by a wavelength and a physical path. When a lightpath operates on the same wavelength across all the fiber links that it traverses, it is said to satisfy the wavelength-continuity constraint (WCC).