An open shop approach in approximating optimal data transmission duration in WDM networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a hybrid scheduling algorithm for optical WDM networks that approximates optimal data transmission durations by reducing the problem to open shop scheduling, demonstrating near-optimal performance in experiments.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel hybrid algorithm, HSA, that approximates the packet scheduling problem in WDM networks by leveraging polynomially solvable open shop instances, improving scheduling efficiency.

Findings

HSA produces schedules close to the optimal in all tested datasets.

HSA outperforms SGA in efficiency and scheduling quality.

The approach effectively reduces PBS to open shop scheduling, enabling better approximations.

Abstract

In the past decade Optical WDM Networks (Wavelength Division Multiplexing) are being used quite often and especially as far as broadband applications are concerned. Message packets transmitted through such networks can be interrupted using time slots in order to maximize network usage and minimize the time required for all messages to reach their destination. However, preempting a packet will result in time cost. The problem of scheduling message packets through such a network is referred to as PBS and is known to be NP-Hard. In this paper we have reduced PBS to Open Shop Scheduling and designed variations of polynomially solvable instances of Open Shop to approximate PBS. We have combined these variations and called the induced algorithm HSA (Hybridic Scheduling Algorithm). We ran experiments to establish the efficiency of HSA and found that in all datasets used it produces schedules very close to the optimal. To further establish HSAs efficiency we ran tests to compare it to SGA, another algorithm which when tested in the past has yielded excellent results.