Performance analysis for unicast and multicast traffic in broadcast-and-select WDM networks

This paper presents the analysis of multicasting performance in broadcast-and-select wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks from two aspects: multicast session length and multi-cast group size. The protocol analyzed in this paper is based on an existing protocol which can schedule unicast and multicast traffic. The packet distance, determined by the Euclidean distance of session length and the group size of a multicast packet, is compared with the multicast distance to select the most appropriate scheduling method for multicast packets. Further comparisons on channel utilization and packet delay show that the session length will affect the channel dominance significantly and the group size will determine the range of multicast distance such that the performances will remain the same. In addition, multicast traffic with larger mean session length or mean group size will make some specific scheduling strategies fail to achieve optimal performance. If the multicast distance is properly chosen, performance tradeoffs can be made under the multicasting environments with large session length or large group size.