A cost-effective approach to introduce an optical WDM network inthe metropolitan environment

A case study shows that an optical wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) network can be employed in a metropolitan network in a cost effective way. In part, cost savings are realized due to the total number of line terminals required and the fact that the dimensions of the electrical nodes decrease when exploiting optical cross connects (OXCs) to a large extent. Optical WDM rings are also an important building element when designing a metropolitan network. A number of the properties of WDM rings are classified, resulting in eight different ring architectures. Additional requirements arise when considering ring-to-ring connections. The extent of the rings chosen for the case study is validated from the transmission point of view by a simple model. Finally, as an alternative to an all-optical approach, an opto-electrical approach is presented     

A wideband all-optical WDM network

We describe some of the results of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) sponsored Consortium on Wideband All-Optical Networks in developing architectures, technology components, and applications for the realization of scaleable, wideband, and transparent optical wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) networks. Our architecture addresses all-optical transport over the wide, metropolitan, and local areas. It utilizes wavelength partitioning, routing, and active multiwavelength cross-connect switches to achieve a network that is scaleable in the number of users, data rates, and geographic span. The network supports two services which can be point-to-multipoint or multipoint-to-multipoint simplex or duplex connections. The A service is a transparent physically circuit-switched service and the B-service is a scheduled time-slotted circuit which is transparent within its time slots. We have developed a 20-channel local and metropolitan area WDM testbed deployed in the Boston area, now undergoing characterization and experimental applications     

A management and visualization framework for reconfigurable WDM optical networks

As the phenomenal advance in optical WDM networking technologies continues, optical WDM network equipment has been deployed not only in backbone networks, but also in regional, metropolitan, and access networks. It is widely believed that a major component of the next-generation Internet will be an IP-based optical network employing WDM. WDM wavelength routing and signaling have become an active research field, and dynamic and adaptive wavelength routing and assignment algorithms have been proposed. However, there is less work on reporting network control and management system implementation efforts over testbed WDM networks. This article presents a network management and visualization framework aimed at guiding the development of management applications for reconfigurable WDM optical networks. A layered framework architecture including element and network management and visualization is provided, and an object-based information model representing the WDM network is introduced. Functional components on reconfiguration, software agent, and network visualization services are presented, and important issues related to optical lightpath generation are discussed. A network visualization service also provides WDM control and management APIs to applications and access networks such as an IP network management system. To illustrate the usage of the framework, we share our experience in implementing the MONET network control and management system, and present network visualization views obtained from the MONET WDM network to highlight the framework features.     

An All-Optical Access-Metro Interface for Hybrid WDM/TDM PON Based on OBS

A new all-optical access-metro network interface based on optical burst switching (OBS) is proposed. A hybrid wavelength-division multiplexing/time-division multiplexing (WDM/TDM) access architecture with reflective optical network units (ONUs), an arrayed-waveguide-grating outside plant, and a tunable laser stack at the optical line terminal (OLT) is presented as a solution for the passive optical network. By means of OBS and a dynamic bandwidth allocation (DBA) protocol, which polls the ONUs, the available access bandwidth is managed. All the network intelligence and costly equipment is located at the OLT, where the DBA module is centrally implemented, providing quality of service (QoS). To scale this access network, an optical cross connect (OXC) is then used to attain a large number of ONUs by the same OLT. The hybrid WDM/TDM structure is also extended toward the metropolitan area network (MAN) by introducing the concept of OBS multiplexer (OBS-M). The network element OBS-M bridges the MAN and access networks by offering all-optical cross connection, wavelength conversion, and data signaling. The proposed innovative OBS-M node yields a full optical data network, interfacing access and metro with a geographically distributed access control. The resulting novel access-metro architectures are nonblocking and, with an improved signaling, provide QoS, scalability, and very low latency. Finally, numerical analysis and simulations demonstrate the traffic performance of the proposed access scheme and all-optical access-metro interface and architectures     

AWG-based metro WDM networking

A plethora of metropolitan area wavelength-division multiplexing networks have been proposed and examined in recent years with the aim to alleviate the bandwidth bottleneck between increasingly higher-speed local/access networks and high-speed backbone networks. Many of the considered metropolitan area networks use the arrayed waveguide grating as an optical building block. As we review in this article, in ring, interconnected ring, and meshed metro WDM networks, the AWG is typically used to realize wavelength multiplexers, demultiplexers, or optical add-drop multiplexers without capitalizing on spatial wavelength reuse. By using the AWG as a wavelength router, highly efficient star metro WDM networks can be realized due to extensive spatial wavelength reuse. We give an overview of star metro WDM networks that are able to meet modular upgradability, transparency, flexibility, efficiency, reliability, and protection requirements of future metro networks. AWG-based star networks also enable an evolution path of ring networks toward highly efficient and fault-tolerant hybrid star-ring metro network solutions.     

WDM applications in broadband telecommunication networks

Network applications of multichannel wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) techniques are considered. The photonic technologies that will be critical to future systems using WDM are reviewed. Both interoffice and subscriber loop architectures that utilize the unique properties of WDM to achieve important advantages over more traditional network designs are presented. Several experimental demonstrations that illustrate how these architectures can be realized with currently available components are described     

城域WDM环网及其应用

文章阐述了城域WDM环网的节点结构、保护方式、波长转换器、子速率复用和光网络管理等,给出了WDM环网在城域应用时应考虑的一些因素,并分析了运营商所关心的系统成本问题。     

基于IP over WDM的光城域网

提出了基于IP over WDM的光城域网方案,详细阐述了波长选路WDM光城域网的多级网络拓扑及波长配置方式,并分析了波长配置方式对波长选路由策略的影响。     

High-speed protocol for an all-optical packet switched metropolitan area network

An optical metropolitan area network employing packet switching and wavelength division multi-accessing is discussed in this article. Two variations are presented. One employs a preassigned TDM scheme in conjunction with WDM. The other also uses TDM but assigns slots on a packet-by-packet basis. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Flexible hybrid WDM/TDM PON architectures using wavelength selective switches

For building an optical access network, we propose some new hybrid WDM/TDM passive optical network (PON) architectures that use wavelength selective switches (WSSs) at the remote node to improve flexibility, data security and power budget. Through simulations we demonstrate that the switching capabilities of a WSS can provide additional gains in terms of wavelength usage by a better statistical multiplexing. Several WSS-based hybrid WDM/TDM PON variants are proposed and assessed. These architectures are also compared with the more commonly used hybrid WDM/TDM PONs consisting of power splitters and/or arrayed wavelength gratings (AWGs), in terms of cost and power budget.     

Architectural principles of optical regional and metropolitanaccess networks

High-end access networks that serve large businesses and campuses will greatly benefit from the introduction of WDM technology, in terms of greater bandwidth, increased flexibility, and enhanced services. We refer to such networks as optical regional and metropolitan access networks (ORMA-Nets). Here, we qualitatively and quantitatively investigate many important principles, as well as challenges, in deploying ORMA-Nets. Access networks in general are functionally comprised of a feeder network, which is responsible for traffic aggregation, and a distribution network, which directly interfaces with the customer premises. We present several configurable, scalable designs for the feeder network that are capable of aggregating a range of traffic types and rates. We also present architectures for achieving a high degree of functionality using relatively low-cost, passive optical components in the distribution network. We explore topics such as optimal switch placement and wavelength banding, and emphasize the technologies that are needed to deliver advanced capabilities. Various underlying themes run throughout the paper, such as optionally not always using bandwidth as efficiently as possible in order to simplify the architecture, and the importance of transparency in providing enhanced services and architectural flexibility     

A transparent, all-optical, metropolitan network experiment in afield environment: the “PROMETEO” self-healing ring

In this paper, we present an optical network demonstrator realizing a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) metropolitan self-healing ring. The network integrate three optical add-drop multiplexer (OADM) nodes, designed by two manufacturing companies adopting different architectures and technological solution. It is so demonstrated that transversal compatibility among optical network entities produced by different companies is possible at the state of the art of the technology. A complete transmission performance characterization of the network has been carried out demonstrating that, in nominal operating conditions and on the most critical path, the error probability is lower that 10^-14. The reconfiguration times in case of failure has been measured too, demonstrating that this network architecture provide fast self-healing mechanism, in line with the requirements of ITU-T recommendations for very high capacity networks     

Architectures and Performance of Optical Packet Switching over WDM

Packet switching over wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) channels is considered with the aim to investigate algorithms for wavelength assignment and to define feasible switch architectures, in the presence of connectionless or connection-oriented transfer modes. In particular, as regards the connection-oriented scenario, mapping of virtual connections onto wavelengths operated by network nodes is considered and procedures are proposed to achieve statistical multiplexing efficiency by dynamic wavelength re-assignment. Switch architectures to support dynamic wavelength encoding and the related performance evaluation are presented and discussed in the paper, evidencing the benefits of packet switching over WDM.     

Distributed slot synchronization (DSS): a network-wide slotsynchronization 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/λ, 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     

TOPICS IN OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS - STARGATE: The Next Evolutionary Step toward Unleashing the Potential of WDM EPONs

WDM EPONs are rapidly becoming mature. In this article we briefly review the state of the art of cost reduction, colorless ONUs, and WDM PONs. We then lift the veil of future WDM EPONs, and elaborate on evolutionary cost-effective upgrades of WDM EPONs and their all-optical WDM integration with Ethernet-based metropolitan area networks to provide transparent connections at the wavelength and sub-wavelength granularity on demand between ONUs residing in different WDM EPONs     

The Rainbow-II gigabit optical network

This paper describes the Rainbow-II optical metropolitan area network (MAN), which supports 32 nodes each at 1 Gbit/s over a distance of 10-20 km. Rainbow-II uses optical wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM), in a broadcast star architecture. Each node uses a separate fixed wavelength for transmitting data and a tunable receiver for receiving one of several data streams. The network is implemented in the form of optical network nodes, each attached to a host computer via the high-performance parallel interface (HIPPI). Each network node contains protocol processing hardware to offload the protocol processing work from the host computer onto the node. The goal is to provide full gigabit-per-second bandwidth to end-user supercomputer applications. Preliminary protocol performance measurements in a testbed network are given     

Effects of filter concatenation for directly modulated transmissionlasers at 2.5 and 10 Gb/s

We report computer simulation results of the effects on optical signal quality of passage through a cascade of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) filters-multiplexers and demultiplexers-for directly modulated lasers with different chirp characteristics. In particular, lasers with transient or adiabatic chirp characteristics at 2.5 Gb/s and 10 Gb/s are investigated, and we find clear differences between the laser types with respect to filter concatenation effects. Filters with an optical bandwidth suitable for a 200-GHz channel-spacing system are considered, and we evaluate the system behavior as a function of laser frequency offset for a fixed number of filters. The reference network architecture used for the simulations is an optically transparent metropolitan scale network in which the WDM signals may be demultiplexed and then multiplexed again at multiple optical network elements. The signal quality is evaluated in terms of a distortion-induced eye-closure penalty as well as the excess attenuation or loss suffered. We find that transient chirp-dominated lasers show a generally symmetric distortion penalty response to laser frequency offset, whereas the response for adiabatic chirp dominated lasers is highly asymmetric. Furthermore, the extinction ratio for the latter class of lasers can be improved, in some cases, by the appropriate offset between laser and filter center frequencies     

Sprint long distance network survivability: today and tomorrow

The high reliability exhibited by the Sprint long distance network is the result of many interrelated factors. The network utilizes robust architectures, systems, and equipment to provide a reliable transport infrastructure. Redundant equipment, conservative synchronization, protected power, and other factors combine to form a dependable foundation. New architectures and systems are under development to meet the changing demands of customers. This article summarizes Sprint's current network reliability, and emerging demands and technology, and presents possible directions for the future Sprint network. Sprint selected the SONET four-fiber bidirectional line switched ring (4F BLSR) architecture for the vast majority of its transport network architecture. A 4F BLSR architecture requires four fibers, or four optical wavelengths of wave division multiplexing (WDM), to accommodate a work and protect path in each direction around a ring of network elements or add-drop multiplexers (ADMs)     

Topology Design of OXC-Switched WDM Networks

This paper attempts to find a new analytical framework to identify cost-effective topological architectures of optical cross-connect (OXC)-switched wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) networks. To keep the analysis tractable, we first focus on regular networks and a deterministic uniform traffic model. Regular topologies with symmetries are good approximations of metropolitan area and local area networks but only a fair resemblance of wide area networks. We find that for a regular topology the minimum-hop distance, which is normally used for gauging the size of the network, is an important parameter in dimensioning switching resources. By setting up a first-order cost model and evaluating the tradeoff between network resources, we obtain closed form solutions for the optimal node degree and network cost. For network design under stochastic traffic, we study the worst case capacity dimensioning and blocking probability among the set of all possible stochastic traffic distributions with the same mean and variance. The analytical approach presented in this paper helps us gain insights of parametric dependency of an optimal network architecture on key network design parameters.     

Mathematical formulation of provisioning of connections with advance reservation in metro WDM ring networks using reconfigurable OADMs (ROADMs) with tuning constraint

Optical add/drop multiplexers (OADMs) can significantly reduce the cost of metro optical wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) ring networks by allowing traffic to bypass intermediate nodes without expensive opto-electro-opto (O-E-O) conversion. Some traditional OADMs, called fixed OADMs (FOADMs), can only add/drop traffic on a specific wavelength. Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexers (ROADMs) are emerging, which can add/drop traffic onto/from different wavelengths at different time. ROADMs provide desirable flexibility, enable fast provisioning of dynamic traffic, and save capital expenditure (CapEx) and operational expenditure (OpEx). In order to be cost-effective, some ROADMs employ architectures that tune the ROADM continuously from one wavelength to another, crossing through all the wavelengths in-between, which may cause interference to the connections, if any, on those wavelengths being crossed. In order to prevent existing connections from being interrupted, a constraint needs to be imposed that ROADMs cannot cross working wavelengths when tuning. In this study, the design and the benefits of metro optical WDM network architectures using ROADMs and the impact of this tuning constraint on the performance of the network are investigated. Mathematical formulation of the problem of provisioning of connections with advance reservation, in which the arrival time and departure time of all the connections are known in advance, is presented, and results for a small network are shown.