Design of Protection Technology in WDM Optical Network

Protection and survivability are very important problems in optical network. With the rapid development of WDM optical network, protection technology is paid more and more attentions. In this paper, we analyze the protection principle of WDM optical network, propose a protection method for optical network. Protection schemes can be divided into link protection, path protection, and partial path protection schemes. Path protection can be further subdivided into dedicated path protection and shared path protection. In the dedicated path protection schemes, spare capacity is reserved for each individual end-to-end lightpath whilst in the shared path protection schemes, spare capacity is shared among multiple lightpaths, as long as those lightpaths do not fail simultaneously. Lightpaths sharing the same backup resources must be path-disjoint.