AN EFFECTIVE APPROACH TO THE CONNECTION ROUTING PROBLEM OF
ALL-OPTICAL WAVELENGTH ROUTING DWDM NETWORKS WITH
WAVELENGTH CONVERSION CAPABILITY
Yiming Zhang and Oliver W. W. Yang
CCNR Lab, School of Information Technology and Engineering, Univ. of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada, K1N 6N5 Phone:1-613-5625800-6210 Fax: 1-613-5625175 Email: yizhang@site.uottawa.ca
Abstract— The emergence of DWDM (Dense Wavelength-
Division Multiplexing) technology has provided the network
designer great convenience in constructing a wavelength routing
optical network. In this paper, we study the problem of routing
and wavelength assignment (RWA) in an all-optical DWDM
network. We formulated the problem into a constrained integer
linear problem (ILP) and the objective is to minimize the overall
cost of the routing scheme over the DWDM network.
Considering the complexity of the RWA problem, a
decomposition approach using Lagrangean relaxation is
proposed to simplify the solution procedure. The overall problem
is decomposed into semi-lightpath level subproblems for the
wavelength and route selection from the source to the destination.
The multipliers are then updated at the high level. To optimize
the dual function, subgradient approach is used. Also, a heuristic
algorithm is proposed to generate a feasible RWA scheme based
on the dual solution. The performance evaluation for the
optimization result of one network example indicates that the
algorithm we used can achieve very good near-optimum solution,
and the influence from the changing of the number of resources is
also studied.
1. INTRODUCTION
WDM provides the ability to divide the huge optical
bandwidth available in fiber into lower-capacity wavelengths.
The wavelengths in fiber can be considered as separate non-
interfering channels. Based on this approach, the networks
nodes can be connected to each other through optical channels
(lightpaths) [1]. By placing wavelength converters at the
junctions of concatenated lightpaths, a more flexible
transmission path, i.e., a semi-lightpath [2], can be constructed
by chaining together several lightpaths.
In static and quasi-static routing, the traffic requirements in
the WDM network are given as a set of point-to-point logical
connections between pairs of access station, and this set of
connections defines a logical topology. These connections
quite often remain in place for a relatively long period of time;
so it is worthwhile to optimize the way, in which the logical
topologies are embedded onto the physical topology with
respect to a given performance measure, even if optimization
may require a considerable amount of computation [3].
There is much interesting work done in wavelength routing
networks. The routing of a semi-lightpath with the minimum
cost has been studied in [2]. An algorithm is provided in [4] to
minimize the cost of a multicast tree in an all-optical WDM
network of an arbitrary topology, while the multicast nodes
are pre-assigned. However, both papers do not consider the
collisions produced by the routing of simultaneous
connections in a network with limited resources. When
minimizing the overall cost of the lightpaths routed over the
DWDM network, an integer linear problem (ILP) formulation
is quite often employed, e.g., [3]. Many heuristic algorithms
0-7803-7802-4/03/$17.00 © 2003 IEEE
1370
have been developed to solve the problem of routing
connection demands and assigning wavelengths in WDM
network, e.g., [5]. Most of the heuristic methods usually
generate satisfactory schedules in a reasonable computation
time, but their performances usually vary from one case to
another, and they in general cannot demonstrate the
effectiveness of their solution in showing how close their final
results are from the optimal solution. The LP-relaxation, e.g.
[6], has been studied as one method to provide a bound to the
optimum solution. However, it is essentially a branch-and-
bound method, which is very computationally expensive and
can barely be employed to solve the RWA problems in big
networks with a large amount of variables and constraints.
Lagrangean relaxation and subgradient method has been
employed to solve the routing and capacity assignment
problem in the packet switching network with various
constraints [7], and to solve the wavelength assignment and
routing problem in all-optical network without wavelength
converter [8]. However, in the networks with wavelegnth
conversion capability, the cost of the wavelength converters
sometimes dominates over the cost of wavelengths on links.
In this paper, we shall study the routing and wavelength
assigning of all semi-lightpath demands simultaneously in the
whole all-optical DWDM network to determine the minimum
cost for a given physical resource configuration and topology.
The overall cost is comprised of the use of wavelengths on
fibers and the cost of using wavelength converters. Practical
constraints, such as transceiver constraints and converter
constraints, are used in the formulation. The problem is
effectively solved by employing the Lagrangean relaxation
(LR) technique and the subgradient method. We evaluated
our algorithm by showing the bound of the final result from
the optimal solution. Our good results from emulation
examples demonstrated the computational effectiveness of our
algorithm. Finally, the influence from changing the resources
in the network is studied.
We use the following notations and variables in the
remainder of this paper:
cj the cost of using a wavelength converter on node j;
dw the cost of using wavelength wijc on the fiber from node
ijc
i to node j; we assign d w ’s in the same fiber slightly
ijc
different values for the preference of using some
wavelengths to others. Here d w = ’, if wijc = ĭ;
ijc
eij the physical fiber between i and j; eij ∈ E;
i, j endpoint nodes of a physical link included in a semi-
lightpath;
lsdn a set representing the nth semi-lightpath between node s assigned according to the traffic level between the network
and d, which is defined as {wsj c , w j j c , w j j c ,..., w j dc |
1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 k k
nodes.
s ≠ j1 ≠ … ≠ d ; wijc ∈ Wij , (i, j ) = ( s, j1 ),..., ( jk , d )} ; In formulating the network design problem later on, we
have taken the following assumptions for our networks:
nij an integer representing the number of wavelengths in 1. The minimum unit of connection demands of the source-
the wavelength set Wij; destination pairs is one semi-lightpath, and all semi-
s,d the subscript(superscript) denoting respectively source lightpaths have the same capacity and the wavelengths on
and destination of a semi-lightpath; the same fiber span assume the same cost.
wijc the cth wavelength on physical link eij (0<c”nij); 2. Semi-lightpath demand matrices and node connection
Dsdn the total cost of the nth semi-lightpath of (s, d) pair, matrices are known, because this can usually be
which is defined as Ȉ(i,j) d w ∆sdn
w
+ Ȉj c j δ jsdn ;
ijc ijc established from the given physical topology and the
Fi the number of full-range wavelength converters on knowledge of long-term traffic requirement.
node i; 3. The full-range wavelength converter (FWC) in every node
(G, E) an undirected graph representing the DWDM network; has a share-per-node structure, because this structure
L the set {lsdn}; requires the least number of FWC to achieve the same
Ri the number of receivers of node i; performance [9].
Ti the number of transmitters of node i; 4. The share-per-node tunable transceiver structure is used in
N the number of nodes in the network; the OXC’s for the same reason in (3).
Wij the wavelength set {wijc , 0<c”nij} available in the 3. PROBLEM FORMULATION
physical link eij between node i and j. Note that Wij= We use the overall cost of the routing scheme to formulate our
Wji, because the fiber can be used for both directions; objective function as follows,
δ jsdn an integer variable, representing the use of wavelength Objective Function:
converters, equal to one if there exists wijc , w jkc ∈ lsdn , min {¦ ¦ C sdn Dsdn } (1)
1 2 L

i,k ∈ G, wijc ∈ Wij, w jkc ∈ Wjk,and wijc ≠ w jkc ; zero

( s , d ) 0< n ≤ N sd

1 2 1 2 Here, Csdn is the capacity of the nth semi-lightpath

otherwise; (wavelength) of (s, d) pair; Nsd is the number of semi-
∆sdn
w ijc
an integer variable, representing the use of wavelengths lightpaths demand between node s and d; Dsdn is the cost of
on fibers, equal to one if wijc ∈ lsdn, zero otherwise. the nth wavelength allocated to source-destination pair (s, d).
The summation of CsdnDsdn is the total traffic-cost product of
2. NETWORK OPERATIONS, MODELING AND ASSUMPTIONS
(s, d). Since the capacity is generally the same for every
Fig. 1 shows a typical all-optical DWDM network under wavelength on a fiber, we consider Csdn as a constant, and the
consideration. It consists of optical wavelength routers objective can be rewritten as:
(switching nodes) interconnected by point-to-point fiber links.
min {J ≡ ¦ ¦ D sdn
Each switching node can be realized by an optical cross- L
( s , d ) 0 < n ≤ N sd
connect (OXC) [3] that is capable of wavelength routing and
= ¦ ¦ (¦ ¦ d ∆sdn + ¦ c j δ jsdn )} (2)
wavelength conversion. ( s , d ) 0 < n ≤ N sd ( i , j ) 0 < c ≤ nij
wijc wijc
j

B When the network topology is given, the network-designing

problem is dependent on several parameters: the number of
b
λ3 source-destination pairs, the number of semi-lightpaths
Fiber Link required by each source-destination pair, and the number of
A a
semi-lightpath 2
(B-D) c C resources (which include transceivers, wavelength converters
and wavelengths on links). Therefore, we have the following
Routing λ1
Node constraints.
semi-lightpath 1 λ2
(A-C) λ2
a) Transceiver constraints:
Since the switching nodes have the share-per-node transceiver
e d
structure, the constraints of transceiver can be formulated as
E D follows,

Fig. 1. All-optical DWDM network consisting of routing ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ∆sdnw ≤ Ti ,

j
∀i
0< c ≤ nij ( s , d ) 0< n≤ N sd
(3)
ijc

nodes interconnected by point-to-point fiber links.

A semi-lightpath starts from a transmitter of the source ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦∆
i 0< c ≤ nij ( s , d ) 0< n ≤ N sd
sdn
wijc ≤ Rj , ∀j (4)
node, and ends at a receiver of the destination node. The path
passes through a sequence of intermediate nodes, each of The symbol ∆sdn
w
equals 1 if the nth semi-lightpath demand
ijc

which uses one receiver and one transmitter to receive the of (s, d) goes through wavelength wijc on link (i, j). Constraints
light signal and to pass the signal on to the next node. The (3) and (4) mean the total number of transmitters and receivers
number of semi-lightpaths for each source-destination pair is used on a node cannot exceed the corresponding number of

1371
transmitters and receivers on this node. Generally, we would subject to the constraints (5) and (6), where ȗ, Ȝ, Ș, ș are,
assume that Ti = Ri for simplicity, although this is not a strict respectively, the vectors of Lagrange multipliers {ȗijc}, {Ȝi},
requirement. {Și}, {șj}.
b) Semi-lightpath continuity constraints: After regrouping the relevant terms, the dual function leads
Semi-lightpath continuity means every semi-lightpath has to to the following problem:
be continuous from source to destination, and for every min{ ¦ ¦ [ D sdn + ¦ ¦ ξ ijc ∆sdn w + ¦ ¦η i ∆ w + ¦ ¦θ j ∆ w
sdn sdn
L ijc ijc ijc

source-destination pair, the semi-lightpaths assigned to them ( s , d ) 0 < n ≤ N ( i , j ) 0 < c ≤ n ( i , j ) 0 < c ≤ n sd ( i , j ) 0 < c ≤ n ij ij ij

terminate at the two end nodes. So, we have + ¦ λ j δ jsdn ] − ¦ ¦ ξ ijc − ¦ ηiTi − ¦θ i R j − ¦ λ j Fj } . (10)
­1 if i = s, j ( i , j ) 0<c ≤ n i j j ij

° Because the last four terms are independent of the decision

¦j 0<¦ ∆ w − ¦ ¦ ∆ w = ® − 1 if i = d ,
sdn sdn

c≤n j 0<c ≤ nij

ijc

°0 otherwise, variables, the problem can be simplified as:

ij
jic

¯ min { ¦ ¦ [ Dsdn + ¦ ¦ ξ ijc ∆sdn w

∀( s, d ),0 < n ≤ N sd L ijc
( s , d ) 0< n≤ N ( i , j ) 0<c ≤ n sd ij

(5) + ¦ ¦ηi ∆sdn w + ¦ ¦ θ j ∆ w + ¦ λ j δ j ] } , (11)

sdn sdn
ijc ijc

and ¦ ¦ ¦ ∆ w = ¦ ¦ ¦ ∆ w = N sd .
sdn sdn
(6) ( i , j ) 0<c ≤ n ( i , j ) 0<c ≤n j ij ij

which is referred to as RP.

sjc idc
j 0<c≤ n 0< n≤ N i 0< c ≤ n 0< n ≤ N
ij sd ij sd

c) Physical wavelength capacity constraints: The RP can also be rewritten as follows:

¦ ¦ (∆ w + ∆ w ) ≤ 1 ∀(i, j), 0<c”nij
sdn sdn

( s , d ) 0< n ≤ N sd
ijc jic
(7) ¦ ¦ min{ Dsdn + ¦ ¦ ξijc ∆sdnw ( s , d ) 0< n ≤ N sd
lsdn
( i , j ) 0<c≤ nij
ijc

These constraints mean every wavelength on each fiber allows +¦ ¦η ∆ i

sdn
wijc +¦ ¦θ ∆ j
sdn
wijc + ¦ λ jδ jsdn } , (12)
only one semi-lightpath being routed through. ( i , j ) 0<c ≤ nij ( i , j ) 0<c≤ nij j

d) Converter capacity constraints: which can be decomposed into ¦ ¦1 subproblems, each of

¦ ¦ δ jsdn ≤ F j ∀j (8) ( s ,d ) 0< n ≤ N sd

( s , d ) 0 < n ≤ N sd which corresponds to exactly one semi-lightpath. Each semi-

δ sdn
j
= 1 means the use of one wavelength converter on node j lightpath-level subproblem (denoted as SPsdn), corresponding
by the n-th semi-lightpath of (s, d). Constraints (8) confine to the nth semi-lightpath of source-destination pair (s, d), is
that the number of converters used in one node cannot exceed defined as follows:
the number of available converters. min
l
{ Dsdn + ¦ ¦ ξ ijc ∆sdn
w ijc
sdn
( i , j ) 0< c ≤ nij
4. SOLUTION METHODOLOGY AND ANALYSIS
Since the objective function is a very complex but +¦ ¦η ∆
( i , j ) 0<c ≤ nij
i
sdn
wijc +¦ ¦θ ∆
( i , j ) 0<c≤ nij
j
sdn
wijc + ¦ λ jδ jsdn } , (13)
j
decomposable function, we propose a decomposition
subject to (5) and (6).
approach to solve the wavelength routing problem. The
We can rewrite equation (13) as
original problem can thus be relaxed using the Lagrangean
{ ¦ ¦ ∆sdn w ( d ij + ξ ijc + η i + θ j ) + ¦ (c j + λ j )δ j } . (14)
sdn
relaxation technique. Then it can be decomposed into min
l ijc
sdn
( i , j ) 0 < c ≤ nij j
subproblems, which in turn can be solved by the
In (14), the subproblem has the same form as the optimization
SPAWG(Shortest Path Algorithm for Wavelength Graph)
problem that has been solved by SPAWG [2]. So we can
proposed in [2]. The problem can be thought of as being
modify the SPAWG to solve the subproblems (13), assuming
solved in two levels: The decomposition of the dual function
into subproblems simplifies our solution in a low level, and the cost of using wavelength wijc is d ij + ξ ijc + ηi + θ j , and the
the high level problem is solved by applying the subgradient cost of using one wavelength converter on node j is cj + Ȝj.
method to maximize the dual function. 4.2. Solving the Dual Problem
4.1. The LR Framework Because of the integer variables involved in the formulation,
We can relax the physical wavelength capacity constraints (7), the subgradient method [10] can be used to solve the dual
converter capacity constraints (8), and transceivers constraints problem DP.
(3) and (4), by using Lagrange multipliers ȗijc, Ȝi, Și, șj, The multiplier vector z = (ȗ, Ȝ, Ș, ș) are updated using the
respectively. This leads to the following Lagrangean dual following formula:
problem, denoted as DP. z ( h +1) = z ( h ) + α ( h ) g ( z ( h ) ) ,
max q = min{¦ ¦ Dsdn + ¦ ¦ ξ ijc ( ¦ ¦ ∆sdn w − 1)
(h)
where z denote the value of vectors z obtained at the hth
ξ , λ ,η ,θ ≥ 0 ijc

iteration, and Į(h) denote the step size at hth iteration. The
L ( s , d ) 0 < n ≤ N sd ( i , j ) 0 < c ≤ nij ( s , d ) 0 < n ≤ N sd

− F j ) + ¦ ηi ( ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦∆ − Ti )
sdn
+ ¦ λ j (¦ ¦δ sdn
j wsjc notations g(z) is the subgradients of q with respect to z, i.e.
j ( s , d ) 0 < n ≤ N sd i j 0<c ≤ nij ( s , d ) 0< n ≤ N sd
g(z) ={g(ȗ), g(Ȝ), g(Ș), g(ș)}. The vectors g(ȗ), g(Ȝ), g(Ș),
+ ¦ θ j (¦ ¦ ¦ ¦∆ sdn
wsjc − R j )} , (9) g(ș) are composed of gijc(ȗ), gj(Ȝ), gi(Ș), gj(ș), respectively
j i 0<c ≤ nij ( s , d ) 0< n≤ N sd where
g ijc (ξ ) = ¦ ¦ ∆sdn w −1 , (15) jic
( s , d ) 0 < n ≤ N sd

1372
 g j (λ ) = ¦ ¦δ sdn
j
− Fj , (16) lightpaths that might result in low increase in the overall cost
( s , d ) 0 < n ≤ N sd
to find a feasible routing scheme.
g i (η ) = ¦ ¦ ¦∆ sdn
w jic − Ti , (17) 4.4. Evaluation of the Feasible Solution
j ( s , d ) 0 < n ≤ N sd
The value the of the objective function J of any feasible
g j (θ ) = ¦ ¦ ¦∆ sdn
w jic − Rj. (18) routing scheme obtained is an upper bound on the optimal
objective J*. The value of the dual function q*, on the other
i ( s , d ) 0 < n ≤ N sd

The step size is given by
qU − q ( h )
α (h) = µ × , (19)
g T ( z ( h) ) g ( z ( h ) )
where qU is an estimate of the optimal solution, and q(h) is the
value of q at the hth iteration. Generally, the best value of the
objective function J of the feasible routings obtained is used
to be qU. The parameters µ and qU are changed adaptively as
the algorithm converges. The rate of the change can be
determined by experimental experiences. It has also been
shown in the operations research field [11] that the adaptive
change of the parameters with the progress of the subgradient
algorithm will speed up the convergence of the algorithm.
Specifically, if the value of q(h) remains roughly the same for
several iterations, the parameter values are decreased, and if
the value of q(h) keeps increasing for several iterations, the
hand, is a lower bound on J*. The difference (J* - q*) is
known as duality gap [14]. Moreover, (J - q*) provides an
upper bound to the duality gap, and the approximate relative
duality gap, defined as (J - q*)/q*, is a measure of the sub-
optimality of the feasible routing scheme with respect to the
optimal scheme.
4.5. Stopping Criteria
There are various criteria that can be used to terminate the
algorithm, such as the duality gap, the number of iterations
and the objective value. In the current implementation, we
simply use the number of iterations as the stopping criterion.
5. NUMERICAL TESTING
0 1 3
2
10

parameter values are increased.

4.3. Constructing a Feasible Routing Scheme 6 8

Because some of the constraints are relaxed by Lagrange

9
multipliers, the solution to the dual problem is generally 7 4 5
associated with an infeasible routing scheme, i.e., some
wavelength capacity constraints in (7), converter capacity 11 12
constraints in (8), and transceiver constraints in (3) and (4) Fig. 2. Randomly generated network map
0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 2 1 0
might be violated at some links and some nodes. Note that 2 0 2 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 2 2 1
other constraints will not be violated because of the way 0
0
2
1
0
2
1
0
1
0
2
0
0
2
1
1
2
2
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
subproblems (13) are solved. To construct a feasible routing 2 2 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 0
0 2 0 1 1 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 1
scheme, a heuristic algorithm has to be employed to decide 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 1 0 1 2 0 1
which semi-lightpaths should be rerouted and which path the 1 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 1
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1
rerouted semi-lightpaths should take. 2 2 2 0 2 1 2 0 1 0 0 0 0
First we set the arc lengths of the wavelengths that have 0
0
1
2
0
0
1
1
0
1
1
2
0
1
2
1
0
0
1
0
0
1
1
0
0
1
violated constraints (capacity or transceiver constraints) to 1 0 0 1 0 2 1 0 0 1 0 1 0

infinity, and employ Esau-Williams [12] algorithm to

Fig. 3. Semi-ligthpath demand matrix
recalculate the costs of source-destination pairs. Then a
To test the performance of the algorithms and study the
heuristic [13] based on the estimated cost change in J(the
characteristics of the solutions, we generated a random 13-
original cost function (2)) is used to determine which semi-
node network, as shown in Fig. 2. The traffic matrix, with 123
lightpaths should take the ‘critical resources’.
connection demands in total, of the network is shown in Fig.
′ be the cost obtained in the recalculation, and let
Let D sdn
3. d w ’s are randomly generated integers ranging from 100 to
Dsdn be the cost obtained in the solution of the dual problem
ijc

800, and all cj‘s are assumed to be 800.

for the nth semi-lightpath of (s, d). The estimated cost change
of the nth semi-lightpath of (s, d) can be defined as
X sdn = D sdn ′ − D sdn .
If there is no feasible solution for rerouting the semi-
lightpath (s, d), Xsdn can be set to a very big positive number.
The semi-lightpath with the highest Xsdn is deployed first
with the route derived from dual solution. If there is capacity
violation in the route, a new search for a feasible route will be
launched.
Details of the algorithm are omitted here due to space
limitation, but they can be found in our report [13]. In
essence, this heuristic algorithm re-routs the collided semi-
Various computation tests have been done to examine the
influence from the number of resources to the overall cost of
the wavelength assignment and routing scheme and reported
in [13]. Due to the limitation of pages, we will only discuss
the influence from the number of converters and wavelengths
on fibers in the paper.
In the computation, we assign the costs of the wavelengths
in the same fiber slightly different values for the preference of
using some wavelengths to others. To simplify the
comparison, we used same number of wavelengths and
converters on all fibers and nodes. The computation result is
shown in Fig. 4, and the cases with the number of converters

1373
 ranging from 1 to 4 have been studied. We can see that most testing results of a randomly generated network demonstrated
of the final costs, i.e. the primal values, generated are within excellent computation effectiveness, and the influence to the
5% of the lower bounds, i.e. the dual values. Most of the overall routing cost from the number of converters and
results are obtained within 2 minutes running on a personal number of wavelengths installed has been studied.
computer with Celeron® 550MHz CPU and Windows98®
operating system. By running the algorithm longer, better ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
bounds and final results can be generated. However, for the This research has been partially supoorted by a CITO grant.
cases close to the infeasibility, longer time is required for the
algorithm to search for the feasible wavelength assignment
and routing scheme. Notice that the complexity of the REFERENCES
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subgradient method. The decomposition of the dual function [14] A. M. Geoffrion, “Lagrangean relaxation for integer
into subproblems, which can be solved by the SPAWG, programming,” Math. Programm. Study, vol. 2, pp. 83-113,
simplifies the solution in a low level. The high level problem 1984
is solved by applying subgradient method. We have also
provided a heuristic to obtain a feasible routing scheme. The

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