Service differentiation scheme in OBS networks

In order to achieve service differentiation, especially loss differentiation, in optical burst switching (OBS) networks, we propose a dynamic fiber delay line (FDL) partitioning algorithm, which divides FDLs into several groups over a feed-forward output buffering architecture. In the proposed scheme, a plurality of traffic classes and FDL groups can be considered, and each FDL group is assigned to traffic classes, so that the target loss probabilities of classes are guaranteed. Also, the optimal number of FDLs for each FDL group by the proposed algorithm is decided in Poisson traffic environments. The extensive simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed dynamic FDL partitioning algorithm for the loss differentiation in OBS networks.     

Performance modeling of optical-burst switching with fiber delay lines

We develop analytical models to evaluate the performance of optical-burst switch (OBS) architectures employing fiber delay lines (FDLs) as optical buffers to reduce burst-loss probability. The performance of such architectures cannot be captured accurately using traditional queueing models, since FDLs behave fundamentally differently from conventional electronic buffers. We formulate a Markovian model to evaluate the system performance when the burst-arrival process is Poisson and the burst lengths are exponentially distributed under an idealized model of FDL behavior. The model accurately captures both the balking and deterministic delay properties of FDLs, but the complexity of the model makes it infeasible for solving problems of practical interest. By considering approximations of the model in the regimes of short and long FDLs, we develop relatively simple closed-form expressions that can be used for dimensioning OBS architectures. We also extend the approximate model to include the impact of FDL delay granularity. We present numerical results that validate our modeling approach and demonstrate that significant performance gains in optical-burst switching are achievable when FDLs are employed as optical buffers.     

The impact of synchronization on the performance of FDL buffers

Circumventing the speed bottleneck of electronic switching, novel switching approaches like optical burst switching (OBS) and optical packet switching (OPS) handle the switching of bursts (or packets) in backbone nodes optically, and include a set of fiber delay lines (FDLs) for optical buffering. While previous work acknowledges the performance difference between optical FDL buffers and electronic RAM buffers, the important role of synchronization herein has received little attention to date.     

QoS performance of optical burst switching in IP-over-WDM networks

We address the issue of how to provide basic quality of service (QoS) in optical burst-switched WDM networks with limited fiber delay lines (FDLs). Unlike existing buffer-based QoS schemes, the novel offset-time-based QoS scheme we study in this paper does not mandate any buffer for traffic isolation, but nevertheless can take advantage of FDLs to improve the QoS. This makes the proposed QoS scheme suitable for the next generation optical Internet. The offset times required for class isolation when making wavelength and FDL reservations are quantified, and the upper and lower bounds on the burst loss probability are analyzed. Simulations are also conducted to evaluate the QoS performance in terms of burst loss probability and queuing delay. We show that with limited FDLs, the offset-time-based QoS scheme can be very efficient in supporting basic QoS.     

Buffered time-wavelength cross-connects: Architectures and performance evaluation

An all-optical approach to reduce the speed mismatch between electronic sources and high-speed wavelength channels is to time-division multiplex low-capacity circuits onto each wavelength. In such a Time-Wavelength-Switched Network (TWSN), the optical crossconnects (OXCs) are configured to switch time-wavelength-slots within the network. The OXCs can be deployed with a bank of fiber delay lines (FDLs) to improve the connection slot scheduling and decrease the connection blocking probability. In this paper, we consider the two broad scenarios of sharing a bank of FDLs: shared per output link (SPL) and shared per crossconnect (SPC). We present several OXC architectures and develop graph formulations that can be used to optimally solve the scheduling problem. We also incorporate wavelength conversion and feedback in these architectures and study the impact of various FDL configurations on a crossconnect’s performance. Results using numerical simulations show that the FDL configuration does in fact affect the performance of the OXC. We also evaluate the performance of an OXC equipped with an FDL bank for both the SPL and SPC scenarios by considering sparse wavelength converters (limited number of full range wavelength converters). Results show that using sparse converters along with FDLs could provide significant benefits.     

Scheduling algorithms for shared fiber-delay-line optical packet Switches-part II: the three-stage clos-network case

In all-optical packet switching, packets may arrive at an optical switch in an uncoordinated fashion. To prevent packet loss in the switch, fiber delay lines (FDLs) are used as optical buffers to store optical packets. However, assigning FDLs to the arrival packets to achieve high throughput, low delay, and low loss rate is not a trivial task. In the authors' companion paper, several efficient scheduling algorithms were proposed for single-stage shared-FDL optical packet switches (OPSs). To further enhance the switch's scalability, this work was extended to a multistage case. In this paper, two scheduling algorithms are proposed: 1) sequential FDL assignment and 2) multicell FDL assignment algorithms for a three-stage optical Clos-Network switch (OCNS). The paper shows by simulation that a three-stage OCNS with these FDL assignment algorithms can achieve satisfactory performance.     

Analytical MMAP-Based Bounds for Packet Loss in Optical Packet Switching with Recirculating FDL Buffers

The major goal of optical packet switching (OPS) is to match switching technology to the huge capacities provided by (D)WDM. A crucial issue in packet switched networks is the avoidance of packet losses stemming from contention. In OPS, contention can be solved using a combination of exploitation of the wavelength domain (through wavelength conversion) and buffering. To provide optical buffering, fiber delay lines (FDLs) are used. In this paper, we focus on an optical packet switch with recirculating FDL buffers and wavelength converters. We introduce the Markovian arrival process with marked transitions (MMAP), which has very desirable properties as a traffic model for OPS performance assessment. Using this model, we determine lower and upper bounds for the packet loss rate (PLR) achieved by the aforementioned switch. The calculation of the PLR bounds through matrix analytical methods is repeated for a wide range of traffic conditions, including highly non-uniform traffic, both in space (i.e., packet destinations) and time (bursty traffic). The quality of these bounds is verified through comparison with simulation results.     

Performance of two-stage shared fiber delay line optical packet switch under bursty traffic

Packet contention is a major issue in an optical packet switching network. It is not a trivial task to resolve contention due to lack of optical RAM technology. This article proposes a two-stage shared fiber delay line (FDL) optical packet switch for contention resolution. In this article, shared FDLs are used to buffer optical packets, in which a pool of buffer memory is shared among all switch output ports. Most of the existing optical buffering schemes are output-based which require a huge number of FDLs as well as a larger switch size that incur extra implementation cost. However, a shared buffering approach is considered in this article in order to reduce implementation cost. In this article, FDLs are implemented in two stages using an extremely simple auxiliary switch. The proposed switch architecture leads to more efficient use of buffer space. The superiority of the proposed switch architecture has been established by means of extensive simulations. The performance of the proposed switch is investigated under bursty traffic. Simulation result shows that the proposed switch can achieve satisfactory performance at the price of a reasonable amount of FDLs. Moreover, the significance of the proposed switch is confirmed by simulation.     

A two-moment performance analysis of optical burst switched networks with shared fibre delay lines in a feedback configuration

Fibre delay lines (FDLs) can substantially reduce the burst loss in Optical Burst Switching (OBS) networks and share-per-node FDL configurations can provide a more cost-efficient solution compared to architectures where delay lines are shared per port. Nevertheless, mathematical performance analysis of this configuration is more difficult due to traffic correlations arising from the shared resource. In this paper, an approximate two-moment traffic model is developed for quantifying end-to-end burst blocking probability in networks of OBS switches with share-per-node FDLs. The two-moment approach can improve model accuracy over more usual Poisson network analysis methods and additionally allows the characteristics of offered load to be taken into account. The accuracy of the proposed method is shown to be favourable, when compared to discrete-event simulations of an OBS network.     

Scheduling algorithms for shared fiber-delay-line optical packet Switches-part I: the single-stage case

In all-optical packet switching, packets may arrive at an optical switch in an uncoordinated fashion. When contention occurs, fiber delay lines (FDLs) are needed to delay (buffer) the packets that have lost the contention to some future time slots for the desired output ports. There have been several optical-buffered switch architectures and FDL assignment algorithms proposed in the literature. However, most of them either have high implementation complexity or fail to schedule in advance departure time for the delayed packets. This paper studies the packet scheduling algorithms for the single-stage shared-FDL optical packet switch. Three new FDL assignment algorithms are proposed, namely sequential FDL assignment (SEFA), multicell FDL assignment (MUFA), and parallel iterative FDL assignment (PIFA) algorithms for the switch. The proposed algorithms can make FDLs and output-port reservation so as to schedule departure time for packets. Owing to FDL and/or output-port conflicts, the packets that fail to be scheduled are discarded before entering the switch so that they do not occupy any FDL resources. It is shown by simulation that with these algorithms, the optical-buffered switch can achieve a loss rate of /spl sim/10/sup -7/ even at the load of 0.9. These algorithms are extended to the three-stage Clos-Network optical packet switches in the companion paper.     

基于FDL和TWC的光突发竞争解决方案及性能分析

在光突发交换(OBS)网络中,突发竞争是影响网络性能的一个重要因素,因此如何有效地解决它,成了OBS网络非常重要的问题.在分析当前文献中的解决方案的优缺点后,提出了一种突发竞争解决方案的系统实现.该实现将光纤延迟线(FDL)时城缓存与波长转换器(TWC)波长变换、空城技术结合在一起,构造了一个基于前向转发缓存和反馈循环缓存的两级交换结构.最后从多方面对该系统实现的竞争解决有效性进行了性能分析和计算机仿真,结果表明:它在适当的业务强度(小于0.6)下,能有效改善突发丢失率和突发延迟;同时能降低系统所需的光器件数目.     

Efficient burst scheduling algorithms in optical burst-switched networks using geometric techniques

Optical burst switching (OBS) is a promising paradigm for the next-generation Internet. In OBS, a key problem is to schedule bursts on wavelength channels, whose bandwidth may become fragmented with the so-called void (or idle) intervals, using both fast and bandwidth efficient algorithms so as to reduce burst loss. To date, two well-known scheduling algorithms, called Horizon and LAUC-VF, have been proposed in the literature, which trade off bandwidth efficiency for fast running time and vice versa, respectively. In this paper, we propose a set of novel burst scheduling algorithms for OBS networks with and without fiber delay lines (FDLs) utilizing the techniques from computational geometry. In networks without FDLs, our proposed minimum-starting-void (Min-SV) algorithm can schedule a burst in O(logm) time, where m is the total number of void intervals, as long as there is a suitable void interval. Simulation results suggest that our algorithm achieves a loss rate which is at least as low as LAUC-VF, but can run much faster. In fact, its speed can be almost the same as Horizon (which has a much higher loss rate). In networks with FDLs, our proposed batching FDL algorithm considers a batch of FDLs to find a suitable FDL to delay a burst which would otherwise be discarded due to contention, instead of considering the FDLs one by one. The average running time of this algorithm is therefore significantly reduced from that of the existing burst scheduling algorithms. Our algorithms can also be used as algorithmic tools to speed up the scheduling time of many other void-filling scheduling algorithms.     

Node pacing for small optical RAM-buffered packet-switching networks

One of the difficulties with optical packet switched (OPS) networks is buffering optical packets in the network. The only available solution that can currently be used for buffering in the optical domain is using long fiber lines called fiber delay lines (FDLs), which have severe limitations. Moreover, the research on optical RAM presently being done is not expected to achieve a large capacity soon. However, the burstiness of Internet traffic causes high packet drop rates and low utilization in very small buffered OPS networks. We therefore propose a new node-based pacing algorithm for decreasing burstiness. We show that by applying some simple pacing at the edge or core backbone nodes, the performance of very small optical RAM buffered core OPS networks with variable-length packets can be notably increased.     

An analytical model for all-optical packet switching networks with finite FDL buffers

Signal loss and noise accumulation can cause fading in optical buffers implemented by fiber delay lines (FDLs). Optical packets that excessively recirculate through FDLs are easily dropped from their routing paths. Therefore, analytical models and packet scheduling schemes require additional considerations for FDL buffers. This work proposes an analytical model for all-optical packet switching networks with finite FDL buffers and a general class of scheduling schemes including many basic scheduling schemes. We intend to minimize the packet loss probability by ranking packets to achieve an optimal balance between latency and residual lifetime in the general class of scheduling schemes. The analytical model is based on a non-homogeneous Markovian analysis to study the effects of various scheduling schemes on packet loss probability and average latency. Analytical results show how various network parameters affect the optimal balance, and illustrate how properly balancing latency and residual distance can significantly improve network performance.     

On Achieving the Optimal Performance of FDL Buffers Using Burst Assembly

This letter proposes a new dynamic burst length adjustment mechanism to achieve optimal performance of fiber delay line (FDL) buffers in optical burst switching networks. Our results show that burst blocking probability at an optical node with a fixed length FDL buffer can be kept at minimum under changing traffic conditions using the proposed mechanism.     

All-optical cross-connect using feed-forward optical buffers with and without QoS: an analysis

An analytical model is derived to evaluate the performance of an optical switch using a feed-forward fiber delay line (FDL) per output for contention resolution. Two different forwarding algorithms for the switch are presented and evaluated: a simple forwarding algorithm (SFA) that is easier to implement, and an enhanced algorithm that provides better performance in terms of both packet loss probability and packet delay. The analytical model can be utilized with both packet and burst switching schemes to characterize the performance of the proposed architecture. Results show that the proposed architecture reduces the packet loss probability compared to that without FDLs. Finally, the same architecture is shown to be capable of supporting Quality of Service (QOS).

Performance modeling of QoS differentiation in optical packet switching via FDL access limitation

We present an exact analytical model for single-wavelength quality of service (QoS) differentiation in a two-class optical packet switch. In this system, QoS differentiation is achieved by limiting the set of fiber delay lines (FDLs) to the low-priority class, whereas the high-priority class is allowed to access the entire FDL bank. The analytical model is based on multi-regime Markov fluid queues and is extensible to multi-class systems with more than two classes. Markovian arrival process packet arrivals and phase-type distributed packet sizes are considered for the purpose of generality. The proposed analytical model is validated through simulations. The numerical results provide insight into determining appropriate subsets of FDLs allowed for the access of the low-priority class. The results also show that it is possible to direct almost all the packet losses to the low-priority class under moderate loads.     

时隙可变长分组缓存调度算法

提出了一种采用时隙处理光分组竞争冲突的基于光纤延迟线的光分组交换缓存算法——时隙可变长分组缓存调度算法SVPB(slotted variable-length-packet-capable buffer)。该算法根据先到先服务的排队原则,通过对到来的光分组进行时间轴分段处理,解决了FDLs作为缓存器的不足。从仿真结果得到,在网络负载较高时所提出的调度算法SVPB比已有的调度算法分组丢失率有明显的降低。     

OPTIMIZATION OF WDM OPTICAL PACKET SWITCHES WITH SPARSE WAVELENGTH CONVERTERS AND NON-DEGENERATE FIBER DELAY-LINES

This paper investigates the untraditional approach of contention resolution in Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) Optical Packet Switching (OPS). The most striking characteristics of the developed switch architecture are: (1) Contention resolution is achieved by a combined sharing of Fiber Delay-Lines (FDLs) and Tunable Optical Wavelength Converters (TOWCs); (2) FDLs are arranged in non-degenerate form, i.e., non-uniform distribution of the delay lines; (3) TOWCs just can perform wavelength conversion in partial continuous wavelength channels, i.e., sparse wavelength conversion. The concrete configurations of FDLs and TOWCs are described and analyzed under non-bursty and bursty traffic scenarios. Simulation results demonstrate that for a prefixed packet loss probability constraint, e.g., 10-6, the developed architecture provides a different point of view in OPS design. That is, combined sharing of FDLs and TOWCs can, effectively, obtain a good tradeoff between the switch size and the cost, and TOWCs which are achieved in sparse form can also decrease the implementing complexity.     

Service differentiation using shared fiber delay line bank in OBS networks

A new algorithm is proposed using the feed-forward type shared FDL bank to achieve service differentiation in optical burst switching networks, which is composed of many fiber delay lines. In our scheme, the proposed algorithm divides a shared FDL bank into sub-groups, and the different sub-group reservation policies for each class are related to each other. By doing so, the algorithm can accomplish service differentiation easily. The optimal number of delay lines for each sub-group is decided by the algorithm. The scheme is verified through extensive simulations and numerical analysis.