Abstract: Optical burst switching (OBS) has been proposed to
realize the next generation Internet based on the wavelength division
multiplexing (WDM) network technologies. In the OBS, the burst
contention is one of the major problems. The deflection routing has
been designed for resolving the problem. However, the deflection
routing becomes difficult to prevent from the burst contentions as the
network load becomes high. In this paper, we introduce a flow rate
control methods to reduce burst contentions. We propose new flow
rate control methods based on the leaky bucket algorithm and
deflection routing, i.e. separate leaky bucket deflection method, and
dynamic leaky bucket deflection method. In proposed methods, edge
nodes which generate data bursts carry out the flow rate control
protocols. In order to verify the effectiveness of the flow rate control in
OBS networks, we show that the proposed methods improve the
network utilization and reduce the burst loss probability through
computer simulations.