Patent ID: 7620044

Claim:
An apparatus for transferring data bursts in an optical burst switching network including a number of nodes, each node including demultiplexers and multiplexers connected to a plurality of input/output ports for transferring the data bursts through a number of wavelengths, the apparatus comprising: a control module connected between the demultiplexers and the multiplexers for obtaining information in a control packet to sort and confirm service classes of the data bursts according to delay time and blocking rate; a switching unit connected between the demultiplexers and the multiplexers for switching the data bursts to an output port of a corresponding destination node; a first buffer connected between the switching unit and the output port for delaying the sorted and confirmed data bursts from the control module once by a preset delay time according to output resource availability and sending them to the output port when the data bursts are sensitive to the delay time; and a second buffer connected between an input and an output of the switching unit for circulating and delaying the sorted and confirmed data bursts up to a preset recirculation limit according to output resource availability and then sending the data bursts to the output port when the data bursts are insensitive to the delay time.