Scheduling Algorithms for a Slotted Packet Switch with either Fixed or Variable Length Packets

We address the problem of congestion resolution in optical packet switching (OPS). We consider a fairly generic all-optical packet switch architecture with a feedback optical buffer constituted of fiber delay lines (FDL). Two alternatives of switching granularity are addressed for a switch operating in a slotted transfer mode: switching at the slot level (i.e., fixed length packets of a single slot) or at the burst level (variable length packets that are integer multiples of the slot length). For both cases, we show that in spite of the limited queuing resources, acceptable performance in terms of packet loss can be achieved for reasonable hardware resources with an appropriate design of the time/wavelength scheduling algorithms. Depending on the switching units (slots or bursts), an adapted scheduling algorithm needs to be deployed to exploit the bandwidth and buffer resources most efficiently.     

一种新型的光分组交换环网体系结构

提出了一种以波长为标签的新型全光变长分组交换环网的体系结构、网络节点的光分组数据包收发模型,以及防止光分组冲突的多令牌协议。使用多令牌协议的环网在进行光分组交换时,不需要高速的光子器件,无需使用延迟线、电中继以及解决光分组的冲突问题。通过数值仿真,分析了4节点、8节点和16节点环网巾光分组各种的时延特性以及网络的吞吐量特性。结果表明,当网络负载增大时,数据包的平均时延增大,同时网络节点的吞吐量和资源利用率也随之增大;网络节点数目越多,网络的吞吐率也越大。     

The study of QoS guarantee in the optical burst switching internet backbone

Optical switching technology can be categorized into optical circuit switching (OCS), optical packet switching (OPS) and optical burst switching (OBS). OCS is suitable for large amounts of data transmission; however, the channel utilization is inefficient when the traffic flows are intermittent. OPS can be easily adapted to any higher layer and is suitable for bursty traffic, but it requires a highly complex technology and optical buffer. The new switching paradigm, OBS, can provide higher bandwidth utilization and meanwhile avoid the complexity in OPS technology.In this paper, we investigate how the quality of service (QoS) can be guaranteed and reliable transmission can be supported in the OBS-based Internet backbone. We propose the adjustable-time-counter-based (ATCB) burst assembly and the non-real time packet retransmission mechanisms and apply them in the ingress router of the OBS Internet backbone to guarantee the quality of real time applications and lossless requirement of non-real time services. Moreover, traffic shaped is performed for real time packets in the egress router so that the real time property is preserved with a low jitter. Simulation results show that the burst blocking probability using the ATCB burst assembly is improved, compared with the time-counter-based (TCB) and burst-length-threshold-based (BLTB) mechanisms. The delay, loss and jitter of real time service conform to the QoS requirement. Meanwhile, the delay of non-real time service also falls in the acceptable range.     

Unified approaches to integrated-service networks–burst and fast packet switching

The increasing demand for communication services, coupled with recent technological advances in communication media and switching techniques, has resulted in a proliferation of new and expanded services. Currently, networks are needed which can transmit voice, data and video services in an application-independent fashion. Unified approaches employ a single switching technique across the entire network bandwidth, thus allowing services to be switched in an application-independent manner. This paper presents a taxonomy of integrated-service networks, including a look at NISDN, while focusing on unified approaches to integrated-service networks. The two most promising unified approaches are burst and fast packet switching. Burst switching is a circuit switching-based approach which allocates channel bandwidth to a connection only during the transmission of ‘bursts’ of information. Fast packet switching is a packet switching-based approach which can be characterized by very high transmission rates on network links and simple, hard-wired protocols which match the rapid channel speed of the network. Both approaches are being proposed as possible implementations for integrated-service networks. We survey these two approaches, and also examine the key performance issues found in fast packet switching. We then present the results of a simulation study of a fast packet switching network.     

全光包交换系统的实现原理

描述了光包交换节点的结构,分析了网络的物理和逻辑的可行性,介绍了一个由40个网络节点组成的节点流量达160Gbit/s的物理网络,网络能提供较好的服务质量（包丢失率和包传输延迟）并兼容多种业务,这一结果为基于全光包交换技术的灵活性网络的研究铺平了道路。     

Elastic basket switching

This paper proposes a new integrated switching system, ‘elastic basket switching’, for broadband and multimedia communications, including voice and high-speed data. In elastic basket switching (EBS), it is possible flexibly and efficiently to handle multimedia information by adaptively assigning communication resources according to communication requests and bandwidth of switched information. For continuous information, such as voice, EBS functions just as a circuit switching system, and for burst data it achieves high-efficiency bandwidth usage equivalent to a packet switching system by demand-assign type time-slot assignment. The detail of EBS and its application to a departmental system-orientated PBX are described. The traffic handling capability and details of the hardware structure are presented. The experimental system, including use of LSIs in the main parts of EBS is also described.     

Efficient channel utilization for real-time video in OVSF-CDMA systems with QoS assurance

In this paper, the utilization of real-time video service in the downlink of an orthogonal variable spreading factor code division multiple access (OVSF-CDMA) system is studied. By modeling the video traffic and wireless channel as a joint Markov modulated process, and properly partitioning the states of the Markov process, an adaptive rate allocation scheme is proposed for real-time video transmission with quality of service provisioning while achieving high channel utilization. The scheme is applicable for packet switching and frame-by-frame real-time video transmission, and incorporates both the physical layer and network layer characteristics. For QoS provisions, the closed form expressions of packet delay and loss probability are derived based on the Markov model. Analytical and simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can significantly improve the channel utilization over the commonly used effective bandwidth approach.     

Heuristic performance model of optical buffers for variable length packets

Optical switching (optical packet switching, optical burst switching, and others) provides alternatives to the current switching in backbone networks. To switch optically, also packet buffering is to be done optically, by means of fiber delay lines (FDLs). Characteristic of the resulting optical buffer is the quantization of possible delays: Only delays equal to the length of one of the FDLs can be realized. An important design challenge is the optimization of the delay line lengths for minimal packet loss. To this end, we propose a heuristic based on two existing queueing models: one with quantization and one with impatience. Combined, these models yield an accurate performance modeling heuristic. A key advantage of this heuristic is that it translates the optical buffer problem into two well-known queueing problems, with accurate performance expressions available in the literature. This paper presents the heuristic in detail, together with several figures, comparing the heuristic’s output to existing approaches, validating its high accuracy.     

光分组交换系统中载波抑制光标签的研究

为了研究高带宽利用率和大容量的光分组交换系统,对载波抑制调制原理进行理论分析,提出了一种载波抑制调制光标签的方案,并对基于载波抑制调制的光标签系统进行了仿真分析和实验研究。结果表明,载波抑制光标签的中心载波抑制比达到21.3dB;在622Mbit/s和1.25Gbit/s的标签调制速率下,系统传输距离超过40km时,依然能保持低于10-10的误比特率;以误比特率10-10为标准,在传输距离为40km时,两种标签调制速率的功率代价分别为1.7dB和1.9dB。此结果说明载波抑制光标签在光分组交换系统中具有串扰小、功率代价低等特点,信号质量好,适合远距离传输。     

Performance characteristics of cascaded delay‐line node architectures in single‐path interconnection networks

Internally buffered multistage interconnection network architectures have been widely used in parallel computer systems and large switching fabrics. Migration from electrical domain to optical domain has raised the necessity of developing node architectures with optical buffers. Cascaded fibre delay line architectures can be seen as possible realizations of output and shared buffering in a 2 × 2‐switching element. These approaches can be used as buffered node architecture in a Banyan like interconnect. In this paper, we investigate and compare these approaches by using simulation methods. Different performance metrics, such as normalized throughput, average packet delay, packet loss rate and buffer utilization have been used under uniform and non‐uniform traffic models. Results show that the TC‐chain node Banyan network offer an improved normalized throughput and average packet delay performances under both traffic models without disrupting first‐in‐first‐out order of arrivals. The switched delay‐line requires fewer switching elements than TC and TTC architectures but at the cost of high packet delay. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

PERFORMANCE COMPARISON OF CELL－BASED AND PACKET－BASED SWITCHING SCHEMES FOR SHARED MEMORY SWITCHES

Shared Memory (SM) switches are widely used for its high throughput,low delay and efficient use of memory.This paper compares the performance of two prominent switching schemes of SM packet switches:Cell-Based Switching (CBS) and Packet-Based Switching (PBS).Theoretical analysis is carried out to draw qualitative conclusion on the memory requirement,throughput and packet delay of the two schemes.Furthermore,simulations are carried out to get quantitative results of the performance comparison under various system load,traffic patterns,and memory sizes.Simulation results show that PBS has the advantage of shorter time delay while CBS has lower memory requirement and outperforms in throughput when the memory size is limited.The comparison can be used for tradeoff between performance and complexity in switch design.     

Soft‐State Bandwidth Reservation Mechanism for Slotted Optical Burst Switching Networks

This paper proposes a novel transport network architecture for the next generation network (NGN) based on the optical burst switching technology. The proposed architecture aims to provide efficient delivery of various types of network traffic by satisfying their quality‐of‐service constraints. To this end, we have developed a soft‐state bandwidth reservation mechanism, which enables NGN transport nodes to dynamically reserve bandwidth needed for active data burst flows. The performance of the proposed mechanism is evaluated by means of numerical analysis and NS2 simulation. Our results show that the packet delay is kept within the constraint for each traffic flow and the burst loss rate is remarkably improved.     

异步光分组交换网的流量建模

研究了异步光分组交换网的流量特性，提出了网络流量的解析模型和近似模型。研究表明，在采用计时门限光分组组装算法的情况下，如输入IP流具有短程相关特性(ShortRangeDependent)，则光分组的到达间隔时间呈负指数分布，光分组的长度趋于高斯分布。     

Architectures and performance of optical packet switching nodes for IP networks

As new bandwidth-hungry Internet protocol (IP) services are demanding more and more capacity, transport networks are evolving to provide a reconfigurable optical layer in order to allow fast dynamic allocation of wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) channels. To achieve this goal, optical packet-switched systems seem to be strong candidates as they allow a high degree of statistical resource sharing, which leads to an efficient bandwidth utilization. In this paper, we propose an architecture for optical packet-switched transport networks, together with an innovative switching node structure based on the concept of per-packet wavelength routing. The traffic performance of such node when loaded by a typical IP traffic is evaluated through computer simulation; packet loss probability and average delay performance are shown for various load conditions.     

Improved TDM switching assignments for variable and fixed burst length

In this paper we present two algorithms for improved satellite‐switched TDM slot assignments of N × N traffic matrices under K transponders/carriers (simultaneous connections), 1?K?N. The first algorithm applies to data switching with variable burst length and achieves optimum transmission time with a significantly lower number of switching configurations than a previously proposed algorithm, while still having the same time complexity (O(N⁴)). Experimental results demonstrate the advantage. The second algorithm applies to the case of fixed burst length and offers a faster complexity of O(L·N²), where L is the minimum transmission time, at the cost of occasionally missing the minimum. Extensive simulations indicate that the difference from the minimum is rare and is at most one. They also show that the presented algorithm even improves a previous one which was proposed for the fixed burst length case and has the same time complexity but uses K=N. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

DIChirp: direct injection bandwidth estimation

Ideally, network bandwidth estimation algorithms should be independent of the end system performance. If end system capabilities are involved, then the measurement will be of the system throughput and will not indicate a correct assessment of network bandwidth. Packet dispersion‐based active bandwidth estimation schemes including Pathload, TOPP and pathChirp use delay correlation where the network‐induced delay on packets transmitted at certain rates is translated into bandwidth estimation. Since packet dispersion‐based active measurement schemes use delay correlation, bandwidth estimations are distorted by the host protocol stack‐induced delay variations. Studies revealed that the host protocol stack‐induced delay variations due to context switching are stovepiped in the network‐induced delay variations and impact the measurement process. This study explores the delay variations introduced by the host protocol stack in packet dispersion‐based techniques. The impact of host protocol delay variations and context switching on bandwidth estimation is analyzed and a new active bandwidth estimation tool minimizing the impact of context switching is proposed. Direct Injection Chirp (DIChirp) bypasses the TCP/IP protocol stack and directly interfaces with the network hardware. It uses the kernel for scheduling the outgoing packets, thus achieving more accurate estimation of bandwidth. Experiments revealed that the host protocol and context switching‐induced delay variations can be as high as 800µs and could result in bandwidth estimation errors near 20%. Experiments also revealed that the DIChirp is superior to the pathChirp implementation in performance estimation since the datapath utilized by DIChirp is less prone to delay variations induced by context switching. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

混合缓存型异步光分组交换的一种改进FF-VF算法

光纤延迟线（FDL）是异步光分组交换（OPS）采用的时域冲突解决方案,通过计算其分组丢失率（PLR）发现,在业务负载高,特别是业务负载大于0．7时,PLR性能较差。研究以FDL作为主要的常规缓存、以电存储器作为辅助缓存的光电混合缓存结构,并用改进的首选即中的填空（IFF-VF）算法调度冲突的分组,达到改善可变长OPS的PLR目的。分析和仿真结果表明,光电混合缓存和IFF-VF算法能改善可变长OPS在负载较高时的PLR性能,并减少FDL的数目。     

An introduction to optical burst switching

Optical burst switching is a promising solution for all-optical WDM networks. It combines the benefits of optical packet switching and wavelength routing while taking into account the limitations of the current all-optical technology. In OBS, the user data is collected at the edge of the network, sorted based on a destination address, and grouped into variable sized bursts. Prior to transmitting a burst, a control packet is created and immediately sent toward the destination in order to set up a bufferless optical path for its corresponding burst. After an offset delay time, the data burst itself is transmitted without waiting for a positive acknowledgment from the destination node. The OBS framework has been widely studied in the past few years because it achieves high traffic throughput and high resource utilization. However, despite the OBS trademarks such as dynamic connection setup or strong separation between data and control, there are many differences in the published OBS architectures. In this article we summarize in a systematic way the main OBS design parameters and the solutions that have been proposed in the open literature.     

All-optical packet compression of variable length packets from 40 to 1500 B using a gated fiber loop

A scalable loop-based packet compression scheme capable of handling variable length Internet protocol packets, from 40 to 1500 B, is proposed and demonstrated. The technique uses per packet variable compression ratio to achieve fixed compressed output packet size independent of input packet size. This technique allows variable length packets to be stored in fixed delay optical buffers and has application to optical packet switching, optical multiplexing, and optical grooming. These results demonstrate the largest packet size compressed to date. Error-free compression and verification of 1500-B packets compression from 2.5 to 10 Gb/s is demonstrated with a measured power penalty of /spl sim/2.2 dB.     

Buffering management schemes for optical variable length packets under limited packet sorting

This paper studies several buffering strategies for optical packet switching (OPS) under limited packet sorting. Three schemes, which are able to sort newly arrived packets based on packet’s length as well as capability of finding the minimum buffer occupancy, are analyzed and compared. Results show that all three proposed schemes could improve OPS performance considerably in terms of probability of packet loss (PPL) and probability of information loss (PIL). In addition, the simulation results show that not all the newly arrived packets need to be sorted in order to obtain minimum packet loss probability. Since the amount of packets and thus the packet processing time is significant in OPS, it is possible that not all the packets can be processed using one of the buffering strategies. An important finding of this paper is that if only 10% of the packets are sorted, the PPL is comparable to the minimum packet loss value obtained when 100% of the packets are sorted.