An asymptotically optimal greedy algorithm for large optical burst switching systems

As the number of wavelengths in OBS systems increases, the utilization achievable for a given blocking probability can be made to approach 100%. This paper shows that this property applies to a wavelength allocation algorithm of greedy type. Another property of this rule, one shared by most other wavelength assignment algorithms, is that, since lost traffic tends to occur near destinations, where the resource usage wasted by such traffic is large, very low blocking probabilities are important for efficient operation. To help identify regions of low blocking probability, we derive an asymptotically exact condition for zero blocking probabilities; it has a form reminiscent of the stability condition of the M/G/1 queue.