Performance analysis of a multicasting protocol with contention-less minislots (Q1603457)

In this paper, we analyze a protocol designed to improve processing performance in WDM networks. Throughput depends on control channel contention and destination collisions. Our protocol therefore divides control channels into contention and contention-less minislots. Any packets not reserved immediately are registered for a contention-less minislot in the next time slot. Control channel contention and the number of destination collisions are both reduced, improving system throughput. In our analysis, we calculate the state transition probability for various numbers of contention-less minislots and arriving packets. Our results confirm that the greatest improvement in system performance is when the maximum number of contention-less minislots equals the number of data channels. Our protocol was effective in improving system throughput.