Next-generation Network Architecture Research Articles

Interconnection of Next Generation Networks - A Regulatory Perspective

The deployment of next generation networks by incumbent fixed-line operators presents a challenge to regulators. This challenge is to balance the needs of end-users with a desire to encourage workable competition between the incumbent and new entrants. The next generation network architecture has the potential to alter the liberalised regulatory environment and reinstate the incumbent as a monopoly provider. This paper analyses the issues that arise from such a deployment and proposes options available to regulators if intervention is required. The analysis sets out the architecture of next generation networks, the impact that their deployment has on competitors and potential access to the core network and access network of a next generation network. The paper concludes by setting out some of the regulatory options that are available.

Implementation of IPv6 services over a GMPLS-based IP/optical network

In recent days, there has been considerable interest in deploying IPv6-based services. Trial and commercial IPv6 services offering has already begun, especially in Japan, Korea, China, and other parts of the world. At the same time, many service providers have embraced MPLS as the enabler for the required multiservice capabilities of their next-generation packet networks. Also, the widespread deployment of DWDM-based optical transport systems in the core network to satisfy the tremendous need and increase in capacity demand has led network planners to reconsider traditional approaches to provisioning and network restoration, and plan integration of the optical layer into the MPLS infrastructure according to the emerging GMPLS technology. The purpose of this article is to discuss next-generation network architecture evolution and present a detailed architecture for transport of emerging IPv6 services and applications over next-generation GMPLS multiservice backbone networks. This article also presents an implementation and demonstration of this technique for IPv6 transport over a GMPLS backbone network as well as interoperability verification of IPv6 and GMPLS using a GMPLS network testbed.

Joint traffic engineering for IP-over-WDM networks

The architecture of next-generation high-speed networks will likely consist of IP and WDM layers. The IP layer runs packet switching, whereas the WDM layer uses circuit switching. Although the two share the goal of efficient use of network resources, there is a lack harmony between the two approaches, owing to different traffic-engineering capabilities. To this end, we introduce a combined approach for quantitatively analyzing the effectiveness of traffic engineering for the two layers. First, we model an edge router and devise a traffic-engineering mechanism to minimize the combined cost over a single path. We show that both the explicit price, which characterizes the traffic-engineering cost, and the implicit price, which determines the network congestion cost, play a key role in wavelength allocation. We consider wavelength granularity, which significantly affects overall performance when the number of wavelengths in a link is small. To solve this granularity problem, we propose an approximation algorithm that finds an integer solution from the real solution. Through simulations, we verify that our proposed algorithm achieves near-optimal performance with greatly reduced complexity and ensures the feasibility of our proposed solutions.

Architecture and Protocols for Robust NGN

Communication networks play an important infrastructural role in the crisis management. To fulfill this role, they have to be robust enough. The robustness is an aspect, which will have to be taken into account also in NGNs (Next Generation Networks). The paper introduces a reference model of the architecture and protocols for robust NGNs. Based on characteristics and requirements for the control architecture, it shows how the control layer can be decomposed, it identifies the basic network elements and the interfaces and protocols that might be used for their interworking. Based on the characteristics and requirements of transport and connectivity layers architecture, and using the examples of different network types and technologies, the authors try to identify the general functions of the transport and connectivity layers in the network.

Enabling revenue-generating services-The evolution of next-generation networks

To survive in today's competitive environment, a service provider must continually evolve its network and enable new revenue-generating services faster and more cost effectively than the competition. These services must create value for the end user, and they must be delivered with simplicity and ease of simple point-and-click provisioning. Next-generation network architectures that enable these services require intelligent optical networks and multiservice networks to be tightly linked and share a common control plane. Unified signaling and control-plane mechanisms that span across both service and transport networking domains are essential to achieve convergence of the multiservice and optical networking layers. This paper serves as a prelude to a series of papers presented in this issue that examine various challenges associated with implementing a service-driven next-generation network. Topics covered include network planning, engineering network architectures, management, control-plane mechanisms, and service provisioning.

Next-generation networks

Dramatic changes in technology, network services, and regulation are driving the rapid definition and implementation of new network architectures and elements. This paper discusses the forces that are moving today's networks toward converged, next-generation networks. It also provides a multiservice, high-performance, and highly reliable next-generation network architecture. This architecture serves as a framework for placing the papers in this issue in context. Together, these papers provide a view of Lucent Technologies' Network Vision with a focus on packet networking, including network architecture and planning, intelligent packet switching, packet voice, quality of service, virtual private networks, and network and service management.

An IP transport and routing architecture for next-generation satellite networks

Over the past several years, a number of new satellite systems have been proposed to provide high-speed Internet and multimedia services to businesses and home users. These proposals have been driven by the desire of network operators to reach end users that do not have cost effective access to other alternatives such as fiber, DSL, and cable, and by the availability of new spectrum (Ka-band) for use by new satellite services. The proposed systems generally employ multiple high-power spot beams, an onboard fast packet switch, and a demand-assigned multiple access scheme to provision IP-based services. In this article we concentrate on a geosynchronous satellite system where packet transport and switching within the satellite system are based on ATM. We describe an IP/ATM interworking and IP routing architecture that is driven by three main requirements: (1) the ability to support ATM SVCs between hundreds of thousands of satellite terminals by a single ATM switch located onboard; (2) a scalable IP routing architecture that does not result in large volumes of routing traffic to be transported over the satellite; and (3) the ability to segment the satellite terminals for routing and administrative control by ISPs and enterprise networks.

Control architecture for next-generation communication networks based on distributed databases

Intelligent routing control is defined as the process in which the network interrogates the databases containing the relationships between logical numbers, such as personal or information identifiers, and physical addresses in the transport network to find the terminal having the information required to process a user request. The routing control system presented uses distributed databases, each of which manages a switching system and all of which are connected through high-speed signalling networks separate from the transport network. If the requested physical address cannot be found in one database, search requests are distributed at the same time to all other databases. For up to 100 million subscribers, the routing control system can find a physical address within 1 s when each database uses ten memories accessed at 200 ns with an interdatabase linkage speed of 14 Mb/s. >