Optical routing of asynchronous, variable length packets

We discuss the introduction/implementation of optical IP routers, then we i ntroduce a novel scheduling algorithm incorporating void filling and aimed at optical routing of asynchronous, variable packet length packets. We desc ribe its structure and discuss the complexity issues. Albeit introduced wit h the purpose of cancelling the expensive optical synchronization, we argue that this approach represents the most viable all-optical approach for imp lementing packets-over-SONET (IP-centric scenario). We also present simulat ions under self-similar traffic conditions which point to the inefficiency of optical buffering to combat the effects of self-similarity, and we outli ne alternative strategies for proper buffer dimensioning.