Optical Packet Switching Networks Research Articles

Optical signal processing for optical packet switching networks

Optical packet switching promises to bring the flexibility and efficiency of the Internet to transparent optical networking with bit rates extending beyond that currently available with electronic router technologies. New optical signal processing techniques have been demonstrated that enable routing at bit rates from 10 Gb/s to beyond 40 Gb/s. We review these signal processing techniques and how all-optical-wavelength converter technology can be used to implement packet switching functions. Specific approaches that utilize-ultra-fast all-optical nonlinear fiber wavelength converters and monolithically integrated optical wavelength converters are discussed and research results presented.

Electrical ingress buffering and traffic aggregation for optical packet switching and their effect on TCP-level performance in optical mesh networks

The wide deployment of wavelength-division multiplexing technology and new transmission techniques have resulted in significant increases in the transmission capacity in optical fibers, both in the number of wavelengths and the bandwidth of each wavelength channel. Meanwhile, the fast growth of the Internet demands more data switching capacity in the network in order to deliver high bandwidth to end users. Although the capacity of electronic routers has been increasing consistently in the past, optical switching appears to be a more cost-effective way to switch individual wavelengths. As the bit rate per wavelength channel continues to grow, optical subwavelength switching emerges as a new paradigm capable of dynamically delivering the vast bandwidth WDM offers. This article discusses one of such techniques, namely optical packet switching, and its performance perceived by end users in optical mesh networks. Specifically, our investigation reveals the benefit of using electrical ingress buffering and traffic aggregation to reduce packet-loss rate of optical packet-switched networks. Through simulation experiments, we present an evaluation of the network's TCP-level performance based on the proposed architecture.

Novel scheme for packet forwarding without header modifications in optical networks

We present a novel scheme for packet forwarding in optical packet-switched networks and we further demonstrate its good scalability through simulations. The scheme requires neither header modification nor any label distribution protocol, thus reducing component cost while simplifying network management.

Simulation of optical packet-switched metropolitan area network

This paper introduces architectures of two types optical packet-switched metropolitan area networks and their media access control protocols. We have designed related network simulation systems. With these simulation systems, the characteristics and performance of the two MANs can be achieved.

Design of all Optical Packet Switching Networks

Optical switches and wavelength converters are recognized as two of the most important DWDM system components in future all-optical networks. Optical switches perform the key functions of flexible routing, reconfigurable optical cross-connect (OXC), network protection and restoration, etc. in optical networks. Wavelength Converters are used to shift one incoming wavelength to another outgoing wavelength when this needs to be done. Always residing in optical switches, they can effectively alleviate the blocking probability and help solve contention happening at the output port of switches. The deployment of wavelength converters within optical switches provides robust routing, switching and network management in optical layer, which is critical to the emerging all-optical Internet. However, the high cost of wavelength converters at current stage of manufacturing technology has to be taken into consideration when we design node architectures for an optical network. Our research explores the efficiency of wavelength converters in a long-haul optical network at different degrees of traffic load by running a simulation. Then, we propose a new cost-effective way to optimally design wavelength-convertible switch so as to achieve higher network performance while still keeping the total network cost down. Meanwhile, the routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) algorithm used in the research is designed to be a generic one for both large-scale and small-scale traffic. Removing the constraint on the traffic load makes the RWA more adaptive and robust. When this new RWA works in conjunction with a newly introduced concept of wavelength-convertible switches, we shall explore the impact of large-scale traffic on the role of wavelength converter so as to determine the method towards optimal use of wavelength convertible switches for all-optical networks.

Performance analysis of baseband carrier-sense circuit in optical CSMA networks

In future shared medium optical packet networks, collision-free transmission may be achieved by detecting the presence or absence of optical packets on specific channels. Using a baseband carrier-sense circuit (BCSC), the direct detection of baseband optical signals can be employed to provide the carrier-sense capability required to avoid collisions in optical carrier-sense multiple access (CSMA) networks. In this work, we present a new theoretical model to analyze the performance of a BCSC in the presence of additive post-detection electrical noise. We validate the model using experiments and simulations. Our model provides a useful approach to BCSC design in future optical CSMA packet-switched networks.

High-capacity packet-switched optical ring network

We propose a novel architecture with MAC and admission control protocols for a high-capacity packet-switched optical ring network. In this network the link capacity significantly exceeds the node bit rate. Nodes transmit and receive packets on multiple wavelengths in parallel by using novel optical techniques. Network control is simple since the load is balanced over wavelengths at the physical layer. The MAC protocol is based on credits, and the derived admission control protocol has similar complexity as in a single channel network. Consequently, the network can follow fast traffic changes which are typical in data networks.

An Optical Packet Addressing Scheme for Optical Packet Switched Networks Using RF Frequency Carrier Assignment

We propose an efficient optical packet addressing technique for optical packet-switched networks, where the pre-assigned RF frequency carriers are used to represent the packet addresses. It can simplify the control process of optical packet switching so that it results in reduced address processing time and smaller complexity of the packet address processor due to simple extraction of address information. We also analyze the performance of the proposed packet addressing scheme in the transmission aspect taking into account packet address wavelength beating and laser nonlinearity.

On Multi-λ Packet Labeling for Metropolitan and Wide-Area Optical Networks

Bit-asynchronous optical packet-switched networks are seen as viable candidates for Metropolitan areas. For such networks we are proposing labeling of the optical packets based on multidimensional headers constructed by using a combination of two or more physical properties like time, wavelength, sub-carried frequency, or polarization state. The resulting header can be processed using slower electronics than the line rate without any sacrifice of the information transfer rate and with higher immunity with respect to degradation of the optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR). Packet identification as well as header-payload separation is achieved using passive devices. This method for constructing and switching information as well as transporting frames offers potential speed processing gains over the binary case as well as improvements on bit-error rate versus OSNR. The feasibility of using headers constructed by combination of wavelength and in terms of dispersion and spectral efficiency is established as a function of bit-rate and distance. Finally a generic architecture for a suitable optical packet add/drop node is described.

Flow Routing and its Performance Analysis in Optical IP Networks

Optical packet-switching networks deploying buffering, wavelength conversion and multi-path routing have been extensively studied in recent years to provide high capacity transport for Internet traffic. However due to packet-based routing and switching, such a network could result in significant disorder and delay variation of packets when they are received by end users, thus increasing the burstiness of the Internet traffic and causing higher-layer protocol to malfunction. This paper addresses a novel routing and switching method for optical IP networks — flow routing, and its facilitating protocol. Flow routing deals with packet-flows to reduce flow corruption due to packet out-of-order, delay variation and packet loss, without using complicate control mechanism. Detailed performance analysis is given for output-buffered optical routers adopting flow routing. Two flow-oriented discarding techniques, i.e., flow discard (FD) and early flow discard (EFD), are discussed. Compared with optical packet-switching routers, a remarkable improvement of good-throughput is obtained in the optical flow-routers, especially under high congestion periods. We conclude that EFD behaves as a robust technique, which is more tolerant than FD to the change of traffic and transmission system factors.

An in-band signaling protocol for optical packet switching networks

Advances in optical networking reveal that all optical networks offering a multigigabit rate per wavelength will soon become economical as the underlying backbone in wide-area networks, in which the optical switch plays a central role. One of the central issues is the design of efficient signaling protocols which can support diversified traffic types, in particular the bursty IP traffic. This paper introduces a novel signaling protocol called the sampling probe algorithm (or SPA) to be used in a class of optical packet switching systems based on wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). The proposed scheme takes a drastically different approach from all existing signaling protocols. The salient features are 1) the pretransmission coordination is using an in-band signaling protocol, and thus does not require separate control channel(s) for transmission coordination; 2) the protocol is based on a reservation (connection) scheme which is capable of supporting multimedia traffic; 3) a gated service is adopted in which each successful reservation allows multiple packets (train of packets) to be transmitted, which can significantly reduce the per packet overhead; 4) the scheduling algorithm is adaptive by allowing flexible assignment of bandwidth on-demand; 5) the channel status gathering is done in a distributed fashion, and uses a passive listening mechanism, which itself does not interfere with packet transmissions. The results demonstrate that the proposed in-band signaling protocol can achieve high throughput and stability under heavy traffic condition.

Approaches to optical Internet packet switching

Wavelength-division multiplexing is currently being deployed in telecommunications networks in order to satisfy the increased demand for capacity brought about by the explosion in Internet use. The most widely accepted network evolution prediction is via an extension of these initial predominantly point-to-point deployments, with limited system functionalities, into highly interconnected networks supporting circuit-switched paths. While current applications of WDM focus on relatively static usage of individual wavelength channels, optical switching technologies enable fast dynamic allocation of WDM channels. The challenge involves combining the advantages of these relatively coarse-grained WDM techniques with emerging optical switching capabilities to yield a high-throughput optical platform directly underpinning next-generation networks. One alternative longer-term strategy for network evolution employs optical packet switching, providing greater flexibility, functionality, and granularity. This article reviews progress on the definition of optical packet switching and routing networks capable of providing end-to-end optical paths and/or connectionless transport. To date the approaches proposed predominantly use fixed-duration optical packets with lower-bit-rate headers to facilitate processing at the network-node interfaces. Thus, the major advances toward the goal of developing an extensive optical packet-switched layer employing fixed-length packets are summarized, but initial concepts on the support of variable-length IP-like optical packets are also introduced. Particular strategies implementing the crucial optical buffering function at the switching nodes are described, motivated by the network functionalities required within the optical packet layer.

Design of packet-switched network using optical signal processing techniques

In this paper, we design an optical packet-switched network with an optical ring resonator (ORR), a delay line decoder (DLD), and an optical address translator (OATR). The ORR can discriminate the header/payload directly in the optical domain. The DLD, together with the optical threshold device, can be used as an optical correlator for the routing control signal. The OATR uses time-slot-interchange (TSI) technology to translate the optical address for the next optical switching stages. These optical signal processing techniques can be applied to future high-speed all-optical switching networks. ©1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 23: 104–109, 1999.

Output power and SNR swings in cascades of EDFAs for circuit- and packet-switched optical networks

A simple dynamic model of the erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) that includes self-saturation by amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) is used to analyze the power and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) transients in wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical networks in which signals cross chains of EDFAs from source to destination. The model, which consists of solving sequentially one ordinary differential equation per amplifier, is used to (1) determine power and SNR excursions in the surviving channels along a chain of 35 EDFAs during isolated add-drop events in a 16-channel WDM circuit switching scenario and (2) run Monte Carlo simulations of the first five EDFAs of the same chain fed by burst-mode packet switching traffic on each of the 16 channels. Each packet source is modeled as an ON-OFF asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) source, with ON and OFF times having a heavy-tailed Pareto distribution. The aggregate source model is asymptotically self-similar, and well describes multimedia packet communications. The results are used to examine the influence of average network utilization and source ON-OFF time variance on the probability density function of signal power and SNR at each EDFA output. We demonstrate that self-similar traffic generates sizable power and SNR swings, especially at low network utilization. The simulations also indicate sizable broadening of the power and SNR density functions along the cascade of EDFAs, reaching levels in excess of 9 dBm and 4 dB for the power and SNR swings, respectively, at the 5th EDFA. The effect becomes more pronounced for longer EDFA chains. Such a large broadening may imply serious system impairments in burst-mode WDM packet networks.

End-to-End Delay Evaluation for an Optical Transparent Packet Network

In this paper an all optical packet switching network is considered to provide transparent transport of information. To this end the evaluation of the end-to-end packet delay is performed by means of analytical tools. Bounds are proposed for the maximum packet delay and calculated by means of a simple additive formula that can be used for approximate end-to-end delay evaluation. Packetization and multiplexing delay at the access interface and queuing delay inside the nodes are considered as contributions to the whole packet delay. The obtained results shown that time transparency can be reached within suitable network design.

Packet-switched optical networks

We describe a testbed to study both the theoretical aspects and physical implementation issues associated with high-bit-rate, multihop, packet-switched OTDM networks. We have found that using optical time-division-multiplexed (OTDM) techniques can greatly increase the bandwidth of a single-wavelength channel. Ultrafast OTDM networks are excellent candidates for meeting the system requirements for massively parallel processor interconnects, which include low latency, high bandwidth, and immunity to electromagnetic interference. High-bit-rate transparent optical networks (or TONs) for multiprocessor interconnects will be best realized with an OTDM network architecture. To fully use the bandwidth of optical fiber, we spaced the picosecond pulses closely together (about 10 ps) and typically applied a return-to-zero modulation format. While the total capacity of TDM and wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks may essentially be the same, TDM systems have better throughput delay performance. They also have faster, single-channel access times for high-data-rate end users such as HDTV video servers, terabyte-media data banks, and supercomputers.

Transparent optical packet switching: the European ACTS KEOPS project approach

This paper reviews the work carried out under the European ACTS KEOPS (KEys to Optical Packet Switching) project, centering on the definition, development and assessment of optical packet switching and routing networks capable of providing transparency to the payload bit rate. The adopted approach uses optical packets of fixed duration with low bit rate headers to facilitate processing at the network/node interfaces. The paper concentrates on the networking concepts developed in the KEOPS project through a description of the implementation issues pertinent to optical packet switching nodes and network/node interfacing blocks, and consideration of the network functionalities provided within the optical packet layer. The implementation, from necessity, relies on advanced optoelectronic components specifically developed within the project, which are also briefly described.

Transparent optical packet switching: network architecture and demonstrators in the KEOPS project

This paper reviews the work carried out in the ACTS KEOPS (Keys to Optical Packet Switching) project, describing the results obtained to date. The main objective of the project is the definition, development, and assessment of optical packet switching and routing networks, capable of providing transparency to the payload bit rate, using optical packets of fixed duration and low bit rate headers in order to enable easier processing at the network/node interfaces. The feasibility of the KEOPS concept is assessed by modeling, laboratory experiments, and testbed implementation of optical packet switching nodes and network/node interfacing blocks, including a fully equipped demonstrator. The demonstration relies on advanced optoelectronic components, developed within the project, which are described.

Distributed slot synchronization (DSS): a network-wide slot synchronization technique for packet-switched optical networks

Distributed slot synchronization (DSS) is a network-wide packet synchronization technique which coordinates node transmissions so that packets arrive aligned to one another at a reference point in the network, independent of propagation delays. DSS was developed for use in the contention resolution with delay-lines (CORD) project, a DARPA-funded 2.5 Gb/s//spl lambda/, wavelength division multiplexer (WDM) optical packet-switched network testbed. In this implementation, it was experimentally demonstrated that the DSS system, operating with 80 MHz control logic, achieves a packet arrival jitter of less than 13 ns with 12 km node spacings. DSS was also shown to be robust against noise and node failure or fiber breaks. The technique is data rate and format independent and can be used in other star, extended ring, or tree-and-branch network architectures for metropolitan area network (MAN) and access applications.

All-optical routing using wavelength recognizing switches

This paper presents system considerations for optical packet-switched network using a wavelength recognizing switch (WRS) device for all-optical control and routing. Networks with the WRS device are capable of truly all-optical routing; the packet header is processed in the optical domain. This unique feature allows the self-routing of optical packets in a flexible and dynamically reconfigurable way, but introduces new challenges for the network architect. Our novel architecture combines the use of the WRS with arrayed waveguide devices in a powerful addressing mode. In this paper we explore some of the system issues, including crosstalk, noise performance, cascadability. We present experimental data on a broad-area WRS device we fabricated and assess the feasibility of an integrated version of the device.