Performance Analysis Study of Multicast Traffic in Star-Based Local WDM Lightwave Networks

Abstract

Multicasting refers to a one-to-many network connection. Many-to-one and many-to-many connections are also categorized as multicasting. In a broadcast-and-select single-hop WDM network the only way to transmit information successfully is to have both source's transmitter and destination's receiver tuned to the same channel. The cost, scalability and efficiency issues of these approaches inspired researchers to study different ways in which the physical medium can be shared efficiently. In this paper, we study multicast traffic in single-hop local WDM optical networks based on a broadcast-and-select system. We use an approximate analytical solution to show the influence of tuning delay on the system performance under different network conditions. We also examine the effect of average packet delay on receiver throughput. Finally, we demonstrate the channel blocking probability versus network offered load characteristics.