MPLS over Segmented WDM Optical Packet Switching Networks

F M Abbou ,Hakim Mellah

doi:10.3844/jcssp.2006.431.433

Abstract

Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) is a promising solution for data transport in future all-optical wide area networks. Such networks consist of fibers joined by dynamically controllable cross-connects which provide purely optical transport between pairs of network access stations. Optical packet switching (OPS) is optical switching with the finest granularity. Incoming packets are switched all-optically without being converted to electrical signal. There are two categories of OPS networks. Slotted (synchronous) OPS networks, in which all the packets have the same size and unslotted (asynchronous) OPS networks, where packets may or may not have the same size. In this study we propose to integrate MPLS over slotted OPS networks by aggregating optical packets into a labeled optical burst. The burst has a fixed number of packets (segments). The number of segments in each burst is encoded in the experimental field of the MPLS header.

Highlights

The deployment of Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (WDM) in communications networks has brought solutions to satisfy the rapidly increasing demand for the bandwidth capacity introduced by the huge explosion in the public Internet[1]
In this study we have proposed to use MPLS in synchronous optical packet switching networks where packets to be delivered to the same destination are aggregated in a single burst and labeled
The switching of the burst in subsequent nodes will depend on the current label

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The deployment of Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (WDM) in communications networks has brought solutions to satisfy the rapidly increasing demand for the bandwidth capacity introduced by the huge explosion in the public Internet[1]. This situation led to research interest in optical packet switching (OPS), which appears to be a strong candidate because of the high speed, data rate/format transparency and configurability it offers[2,3]. In a slotted OPS network all the packets have the same size. The architecture of a typical OPS node in a slotted network is shown in Fig. 1[4]

Tap input n Tap

OPTICAL MPLS

MPLS header

THE PROPOSED BURST SIZE REPRESENTATION

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF LABELED SEGMENTED WDM OPS

CONCLUSION