Patent ID: 7245830

Claim:
A router in an optical burst switched (“OBS”) network, the router receiving and transmitting data bursts on data channels and receiving and transmitting on control channels burst header packets (“BHPs”) that include switching information for corresponding data bursts, the router comprising: means for collecting a group of BHPs arriving during a BHP collecting period and classifying each BHP of the group of BHPs into a corresponding basket depending on a data channel scheduling window in which a data burst corresponding to a BHP is to be scheduled; means for assigning data bursts to appropriate data channels; and means for constructing an interval graph representing data bursts that correspond to BHPs classified in a single one of the baskets having overlapping segments on each data channel as adjacent vertices and for scheduling data bursts on each data channel based on a process that finds a maximum number of non-adjacent vertices on the interval graph.