A heuristic algorithm based on fabu search technology,routing and wavelength assignment(RWA)-TS-P,which developed from the local search greedy algorithm RWA-greedy,was proposed to solve the optimal design for WDM networks.RWA-TS-P introduces power examining procedure to guarantee the availability of all the lightpaths to be established within the network.Experimental results in ring and mesh networks were given,which show the good performance and controllable calculation complexity of the heuritic algorithm.