Abstract
In traditional optical burst switching, an offset time is introduced between the control packet and the data burst. This time gap depends on the processing time, which varies from node to node, and on the path to be taken to a destination from a given source, which may be unknown. An incorrect estimate of this offset time can result in either degraded performance or loss of data. The impact of the associated uncertainty is evaluated. Having the control packet followed immediately by the burst with no offset time in between, makes the protocol more robust. This is realized using a delay line at each switch. The delay-line based architecture in presented for this purpose. The two approaches are compared with respect to the robustness.