A feedback-based congestion control mechanism for labeled optical burst switched networks

In this article we describe a feedback-based OBS network architecture in which core nodes send messages to source nodes requesting them to reduce their transmission rate on congested links. Within this framework, we introduce a new congestion control mechanism called congestion control with explicit reduction request (CCERQ). Through feedback signals, CCERQ proactively attempts to prevent the network from entering the congestion state. Basic building blocks and performance tradeoffs of CCERQ are the main focus of this article.

Dynamic burst discarding scheme for deflection routing in optical burst switching networks

This paper proposes a dynamic burst discarding scheme for deflection routing in optical burst switching networks. In general, deflection routing is effective in lightly loaded situations, whereas it has a contrary effect in congested networks because deflected bursts accelerate network congestion. Thus deflection routing should be employed in lightly loaded networks. Incoming traffic, however, varies in time and location, so that temporal and/or local congestion cannot be avoided. Our proposed scheme resolves this problem in the following way. Each node autonomously detects congestion with local information, and bursts to be deflected are discarded in a probabilistic manner, based on the degree of detected congestion and the numbers of elapsed and remaining hops of those bursts. Simulation experiments show that when congestion happens temporarily, the proposed scheme reduces the burst loss probability, and it utilizes network resources efficiently when local congestion happens.     

光突发交换网络的拥塞控制技术研究(本期优秀论文)

光突发交换(OBS)技术能很好地支持突发业务,有希望应用于Internet核心交换.但是,OBS网络的单向预约信令方式容易造成网络拥塞和大量的突发丢失.文章在深入研究现有的OBS网络拥塞控制策略的基础上,提出了一种新的基于速率的OBS拥塞控制策略.边缘源结点向宿结点周期性地发送和接收资源管理分组(RMP),边缘源结点根据RMP中的拥塞反馈指示了解网络中的拥塞状况,并改变突发发送速率,从而解除拥塞.     

Long-term estimation-based burst control algorithm in OBS networks

By taking advantage of statistical multiplexing gain in the burst level, optical burst switching (OBS) technology enables optical Internet to handle huge volume of data in an efficient manner without requiring optical buffers in the optical domain. However, when congestion builds up in the optical network core, large amount of data might be lost. In this article, we propose an efficient optical burst control algorithm that operates based on the awareness of future burst traffic condition to eliminate the effect of congestion reaction delay. The proposed algorithm takes advantage of multiple statistics to improve the estimation accuracy.Through performance evaluation, it is verified that the proposed algorithm proactively controls inbound burst traffic so that the OBS network can stay in a stable traffic condition while keeping the network throughput high.

Hierarchical time-sliced optical burst switching

To overcome the need for large buffers to store contending bursts in optical burst switched (OBS) networks, a recent variant called time-sliced OBS (TSOBS) suggested that bursts be sliced and spread across multiple frames of fixed-length time-slots. Since TSOBS is rigid in its frame structure, this paper generalises TSOBS to allow a hierarchy of frames. Termed hierarchical TSOBS (HiTSOBS), this scheme supports several granularities of rates, and permits multiple traffic classes with different loss-delay requirements to efficiently share the network. Our contributions are as follows: first, we present an architecture for HiTSOBS and offer it as a viable option for the realisation of flexible and cost-effective OBS networks. Second, we develop mathematical analysis to study the loss and delay performance of the proposed HiTSOBS system. Finally, we present simulation results that captures these loss-delay tradeoff values. Our HiTSOBS architecture gives network operators the freedom to choose the right mix of traffic with desired loss-delay requirements to coexist in the network.     

An adaptive load-aware burst assembly scheme to achieve optimal performance of FDL buffers in OBS networks

Optical burst switching (OBS) is regarded as one of the most promising switching technologies for next generation optical networks. Contention resolution of data bursts is a critical mission to implement practical OBS. The use of fiber delay line (FDL) buffers has received a lot of attention as a fundamental but effective solution to resolve burst contention. Several studies have investigated the way to achieve the optimal performance of FDL buffers at a single-node level. However, this article studies how to achieve the best performance of OBS networks with FDL buffers under varying traffic condition at a network level. For this purpose, we propose an adaptive load-aware burst assembly (ALBA) scheme, which adaptively adjusts the size threshold of burst assembler optimized to the current network traffic load. A piggybacking method used to deliver the traffic-load information from core nodes to ingress edge nodes accelerates the adaptiveness of the proposed scheme by reducing the update time of the size threshold. The effectiveness of the ALBA scheme is proved by comparing with No-FDL case and fixed size-threshold cases under changing traffic-load environment from extensive simulation tests.

ROBS:光突发交换的可靠传输机制

提出了一种新型的光突发交换网络结构模型-可靠光突发交换(ROBS).介绍了该模型的网络结构及基本原理,讨论了在光层上引入的TCP的拥塞控制特性与重传机制.仿真结果显示了突发备份时间(lifetime)、负载率的不同对ROBS网络性能造成的影响.     

Rate-controlled optical burst switching for both congestion avoidance and service differentiation

Optical Burst Switching (OBS) has recently been proposed as a candidate architecture for the next generation optical Internet. Several challenging issues remain to be solved to pave the way for the OBS vision. Contention arises in OBS networks when two or more bursts are destined for the same wavelength, and a wide variety of reactive contention resolution mechanisms have been proposed in the literature. One challenging issue in OBS is proactively controlling the traffic flowing through the OBS network so that the network does not stay in a persistent state of contention, which we call the congestion avoidance problem. Another challenging issue is the need for service differentiation, which is common today in electronically switched networks via the use of advanced buffer management and scheduling mechanisms. However, such mechanisms cannot be used in OBS networks due to the limited use, or total absence, of buffering. One of the popular existing approaches to service differentiation in OBS networks is the use of larger offset times for high-priority bursts which, however, increases the delays and may adversely affect application-level performance. In this paper, we propose a feedback-based rate control protocol for the control plane of the OBS network to both address the congestion avoidance and service differentiation issues. Using this protocol, the incoming traffic is dynamically shaped at the edge of the OBS network in order to avoid potential congestion in the burst-switched core. Moreover, the traffic shaping policies for the low and high priority traffic classes are different, and it is possible using the proposed protocol to isolate high-priority and low-priority traffic almost perfectly over time scales on the order of a few round-trip times. Simulation results are reported to validate the congestion avoidance and service differentiation capabilities of the proposed architecture.     

A new proportional differentiation scheme based on batch scheduling for optical burst switching networks

Optical burst switching (OBS) is a promising switching paradigm for building the next generation optical internet. The proportional differentiation model is very convenient for network operators to quantitatively adjust the quality differentiation among service classes. To provide proportional differentiated services for OBS networks, a proportional differentiation scheme based on batch scheduling is proposed in this article. The scheme adopts the batch scheduling idea to reserve data channel resources for a batch of data bursts. It helps to decrease burst dropping probability. When some data bursts are unsuccessfully scheduled, a preemption method is used to keep a proportional burst dropping probability among service classes according to the expected burst dropping probability equations given by the proportional differentiation model. The scheme has low computational complexity. Simulation results show that the scheme can provide proportional differentiated services and efficiently decrease the burst dropping probability.

Node dimensioning in optical burst switching networks

Network dimensioning should be progressed for pursuing the ultimate efficiency of network system resources in order to satisfy target performance. This article studies node dimensioning as a method of resource optimization in optical burst switching (OBS) networks. OBS is a new switching technology for pursuing bufferless transparent optical networks by sending control packets prior to data burst in order to provision resources for the burst. However, the basic assumption of a bufferless node implies burst contention at a core node when more than two bursts attempt to move forward the same output simultaneously. Thus, burst contention is a critical performance metric and this article takes it into account as a constraint on node dimensioning and target performance. In this article, we first present node dimensioning issues for OBS networks. Two constraints from the transport plane and the control plane which affect burst contention are then introduced. The effect of the burst assembly process on node dimensioning is also presented. From numerical analysis, the optimal number of wavelengths in a link, which provides the lowest blocking probability, is obtained to suggest a guideline for node dimensioning.     

光突发交换中的突发包组装技术研究

光突发交换是近几年出现的一种很有前途的光交换技术，比电路交换灵活，带宽利用率高，又比光分组交换易于实现，突发包的组装是光突发交换的关键技术，在很大程度上影响到光突发交换网络的性能。文中介绍了光突发包的格式，描述了交换网络中突发包组装所需的层次结构和功能结构，并给出了一种典型的生成算法。最后，对选择突发包组装时间应考虑的各种因素进行了系统的分析。     

光突发交换网络中新型减小竞争冲突方案

光突发交换是下一代光网络中的有效核心交换技术之一,在光突发交换网络中数据突发的调度是影响交换性能的重要因素,如何有效地对数据突发进行合理调度,以减小丢包率正是关键问题所在.采用在波长域业务整形与边缘节点延迟调度相结合的方法对数据突发进行调度,与LAUC-VF算法进行仿真对比分析,该方法能有效地降低突发包丢失率.     

A new architectural approach for optical burst switching networks based on a common control channel

The new architectural approach to Optical Burst Switching networks presented here features a common control channel and a node locally maintained network model. The Common Control Channel allows for a fast and efficient broadcast of the network Control Packets, which in turn are used by every node to update its Local Network Model. The Local Network Model allows efficient network resource planning as each node is aware of the reservation status intentions for the resources on each node. This paper describes the new C³-OBS architecture, evaluates its comparative performance to regular OBS, assesses the manageable bandwidth for a C³-OBS network and evaluates the common control channel manageable load. The concept of “Well-Informed Node” is defined as a metric of trustfulness on the information managed by the Local Network Model and the scope and application of C³-OBS networks are studied.     

A new fault-management method using congestion-avoidance routing for optical burst-switched networks

Optical burst switching (OBS) has been proposed as a promising technique to support high-bandwidth, bursty data traffic in the next-generation optical Internet. This study investigates a new fault-management framework for an OBS network. In an OBS network, burst-loss performance is a critical concern. In OBS, the data-burst transmission is delayed by an offset time (relative to its burst control packet (BCP), or header), and the burst follows its header without waiting for an acknowledgment for resource reservation. Thus, a burst may be lost at an intermediate node due to contention, which is generally resolved according to the local routing and bandwidth information. The routing table maintained in each OBS node is generally pre-computed and fixed to forward the data bursts. Such a static forwarding feature might have limited efficiency to resolve contentions. Moreover, a burst may be lost and the network may be congested when a network element (e.g., fiber link) fails. Therefore, for reliable burst transport, we develop dynamic routing approaches for preplanned congestion avoidance. Our goal is to proactively avoid congestion during the route-computation process, and our approach employs wavelength-channel utilization, traffic distribution, and link-distance information in the proposed objective functions for routing. Two update mechanisms for maintaining a dynamic routing table are presented to accommodate bursty data traffic. Based on our routing mechanisms, we also propose a new congestion-avoidance-and-protection (CAP) approach, which employs a primary route and a group of backup routes for each node pair against failures and congestion. The performance of the proposed protection strategy using congestion-avoidance routing is demonstrated to be promising through illustrative numerical examples.

Joint routing and dimensioning of optical burst switching networks

Existing methods for handling routing and dimensioning in dynamic WDM networks solve the two problems separately. The main drawback of this approach is that a global minimum cost solution cannot be guaranteed. Given that wavelengths are costly resources, determining the minimum network cost is of fundamental importance. We propose an approach which jointly solves the routing and dimensioning problems in optical burst switching (OBS) networks, guaranteeing a target blocking per connection. The method finds the set of routes and the number of wavelengths per network link that minimise the total network cost. To accomplish this, an integer linear programming problem is solved. The proposed method was applied to ring networks, where the optimal solution achieves a reduction in the network cost of 10–40% (for traffic loads <0.4, compared to solving both problems separately). In the case of mesh topologies, to reduce the computational complexity of the method, we applied a variation of it which achieves a local minimum. Even so, a reduction of 5–20% (for traffic loads <0.4) in the network cost was obtained. This ability to lower network cost could make the proposed method the best choice to date for dynamic network operators.     

Performance evaluation of high speed TCP over optical burst switching networks

Study of TCP performance over OBS networks has been an important problem of research lately and it was found that due to the congestion control mechanism of TCP and the inherent bursty losses in the Optical Burst Switching (OBS) network, the throughput of TCP connections degrade. On the other hand, High Speed TCP (HSTCP) was proposed as an alternative to the use of TCP in high bandwidth-delay product networks. HSTCP aggressively increases the congestion window used in TCP, when the available bandwidth is high and decreases the window cautiously in response to a congestion event. In this work, we make a thorough simulation study of HSTCP over OBS networks. While the earlier works in the literature used a linear chain of nodes as the network topology for the simulation, we use the popular 14-node NSFNET topology that represents an arbitrary mesh network in our study. We also study the performance of HSTCP over OBS for different bandwidths of access networks. We use two different cases for simulations where in the first HSTCP connections are routed on disjoint paths while in the second they contend for resources in the network links. These cases of simulations along with the mesh topology help us clearly distinguish between the congestion and contention losses in the OBS network and their effect on HSTCP throughput. For completeness of study, we also simulate TCP traffic over OBS networks in all these cases and compare its throughput with that of HSTCP. We observe that irrespective of the access network bandwidth and the burst loss rate in the network, HSTCP outperforms TCP in terms of the throughput and robustness against multiple burst losses up to the expected theoretical burst loss probability of 10⁻³.     

Performance comparisons of restoration techniques in optical burst switching networks

This paper describes restoration techniques for OBS networks. First, we introduce the design issues to be essentially considered, when restoration techniques will be built into OBS networks. Second, considering the design issues, we propose a novel restoration model named “Recover-Then-Reserve,” which can enhance the restoration performance. Third, we develop a simulator using the NS-2 platform to verify the performance of the restoration techniques (path, link, and sub-path) designed by each restoration model (GMPLS-based OBS restoration and our proposal). Performance is evaluated on the following metrics: restoration success rate, restoration time, connection availability, and burst loss probability. The effects of the failure frequency and the number of the restoration attempts on the restoration performance are also investigated. Our experiments show that the proposal can reduce the restoration time by about 25 ms compared to the GMPLS-based OBS restoration model. Also, path restoration technique has better performance than link and sub-path restoration techniques because it has the highest restoration success rate, allowing similar restoration time. Our experiments also show that the more the restoration attempts made and the less the failure frequency becomes, the better the restoration performance obtained.

A method for congestion control in atm networks using peak rate throttling

This paper presents a technique, called peak rate throttling, for congestion control of controllable, variable bit rate traffic in ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) networks. It is much less conservative than techniques that have already been proposed. This is because techniques already proposed take no account of the load that is actually being carried by the network. Techniques already proposed assign a predetermined share of network capacity to connections regardless of what is actually being used. The technique proposed here works by throttling the peak bit rate that a user is allowed to send on a connection when the network detects a rising network load that may increase the cell loss rate of connections to greater than an acceptable limit. Users are still permitted to send whatever average bit rate they require, however. The technique relies on the assumption that the load offered to network links is stationary for a long enough period so that controlling action does not need to be performed too often or too quickly. It is feasible to achieve congestion control of a network using peak bit rate throttling alone and no other technique apart from connection control.     

Design of an ultra fast pipelined wavelength scheduler for optical burst switching

Optical Burst Switching (OBS) is an emerging technology that allows variable size data bursts to be transported directly over DWDM links without encountering O/E/O conversion. In OBS, before the transmission of a data burst, a burst header is transmitted through an electronic control path, setting up and tearing down optical paths on-the-fly. Data bursts can remain in the optical domain and pass through the OBS network transparently. Unfortunately, system performance will be greatly degraded, if burst scheduling requests cannot be processed in time. This article quantitatively studied the negative impact of control path overloading on the performance of OBS networks. Results have shown that control path overloading greatly affects the performance of the OBS routers, especially for systems with large WDM channel counts. In order to remove this performance bottleneck, we have designed and implemented an ultra fast pipelined burst scheduler that is able to process a burst request every two clock cycles, regardless of the number of WDM channels per link. The design has been implemented in Verilog HDL and synthesized to FPGAs. Circuit level simulation results confirm the correctness of the design. The circuit has achieved 100 MHz in Altera Cyclone II devices, allowing the scheduler to process a burst request every 20 ns. To the authors’ best knowledge, this is the fastest implementation of burst scheduling algorithms.     

United stabilizing scheme for edge delay in optical burst switched networks

A novel scheme, namely united stabilizing scheme for edge delay, is introduced in optical burst switched networks. In the scheme, the limits of burst length and assembly time are both set according to certain qualifications. For executing the scheme, the conception for unit input bit rate is introduced to improve universality, and the assembly algorithm with a buffer safety space under the self-similar traffic model at each ingress edge router is proposed. Then, the components of burst and packet delay are concluded, and the equations that limits of burst length and assembly time should satisfy to stabilize the burst edge delay under different buffer offered loads are educed. The simulation results show that united stabilizing scheme stabilizes both burst and packet edge delay to a great extent when buffer offered load changes from 0.1 to 1, and the edge delay of burst and packet are near the limit values under larger offered load, respectively.