Message sequencing and channel assignment are two important issues that nee
d to be addressed when scheduling variable-length messages in a wavelength
division multiplexing (WDM) network. Channel assignment addresses the probl
em of choosing an appropriate data channel via which a message is transmitt
ed to a node. This problem has been addressed extensively in the literature
. On the other hand, message sequencing which addresses the order in which
messages are sent, has rarely been addressed. In this paper, we propose a s
et of scheduling techniques for single-hop WDM passive star networks, which
address both the sequencing aspect and the assignment aspect of the proble
m, In particular, we develop two priority schemes for sequencing messages i
n a WDM network in order to increase the overall performance of the network
. We evaluate the proposed algorithms, using analytical modeling and extens
ive discrete-event simulations, by comparing their performance with state-o
f-the-art scheduling algorithms that only address the assignment problem [9
], We find that significant improvement in performance can be achieved usin
g our scheduling algorithms where message sequencing and channel assignment
are simultaneously taken into consideration. This suggests that, when sche
duling messages in WDM networks, one has to consider message sequencing, as
well as channel assignment. As a result, we anticipate that this research
mill open new directions into the problem of on-line scheduling in WDM netw
orks.