Nicola Andriolli

Challenges and requirements for introducing impairment-awareness into the management and control planes of ASON/GMPLS WDM networks

The absence of electrical regenerators in transparent WDM networks significantly contributes to reduce the overall network cost. In transparent WDM networks, a proper resource allocation requires that the presence of physical impairments in routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) and lightpath provisioning be taken into account. In this article a centralized, a hybrid centralized-distributed and two distributed approaches that integrate information about most relevant physical impairments in RWA and lightpath provisioning are presented and assessed. Both centralized and hybrid approaches perform a centralized path computation at the management-plane level, utilizing physical impairment information, while the lightpath provisioning is done by the management plane or the control plane, respectively. The distributed approaches fall entirely within the scope of the ASON/GMPLS control plane. For these two approaches, we provide functional requirements, architectural functional blocks, and protocol extensions for implementing either an impairment-aware real-time RWA, or a lightpath provisioning based on impairment-aware signaling.

Energy-Efficient Design of a Scalable Optical Multiplane Interconnection Architecture

As the power dissipation of data centers challenges their scalability, architectures for interconnecting computers, or servers must simultaneously achieve high throughput at peak utilization and power consumption proportional to utilization levels. To achieve this goal, this paper proposes the use of an optical multiplane interconnection network, named space-wavelength (SW) switched architecture, able to route and switch packets between servers (on cards) and between processors within a card (or card ports). SW architecture exploits the space domain to address the destination card and the wavelength domain to address the destination port on a per-packet basis. Scalability and energy efficiency of the considered architecture are quantified and compared to typical single-plane architectures. Not only can the SW multiplane architecture achieve higher throughput by exploiting two switching domains, but its performance is shown to be highly scalable with network utilization. More importantly, higher performance is reached with an energy efficiency superior to single-plane architectures. The excellent energy efficiency is achieved using optical devices with low idle power.

Enhancing GMPLS Signaling Protocol for Encompassing Quality of Transmission (QoT) in All-Optical Networks

In this paper, quality of transmission (QoT)-aware lightpath provisioning schemes for transparent optical networks are proposed and assessed. The main idea is to overcome lightpath blocking due to excessive physical impairments (i.e., unacceptable QoT) by means of successive lightpath set up attempts performed by generalized multiprotocol label switching (GMPLS) signaling protocol along alternate routes. The schemes are enabled by the introduction into current GMPLS signaling protocol [i.e., resource reservation protocol with traffic engineering (RSVP-TE)] of extensions which encompass the QoT parameters that characterize the optical layer. Differently from previous approaches, the proposed GMPLS-based schemes are still distributed but they do not imply the introduction of additional extensions into the routing protocol (e.g., OSPF-TE). The QoT-aware provisioning schemes are first validated by simulations performed on a WDM mesh network. Results show that only few successive set up attempts are required to complete the lightpath establishment. In addition, an experimental demonstration where the proposed RSVP-TE extensions are implemented in the control plane of a transparent metro network is reported showing that impairment-aware lightpath provisioning is achieved on a time scale of few milliseconds.

Label Preference Schemes for Lightpath Provisioning and Restoration in Distributed GMPLS Networks

In wavelength-routed networks based on a GMPLS control plane, the resource reservation protocol with traffic engineering extensions (RSVP-TE) allows to establish end-to-end lightpaths. The resource reservation can be blocked due to lack of available resources (forward blocking) or due to resource contentions (backward blocking). In wavelength-routed networks, the backward blocking is the predominant blocking contribution, when traffic load is low or highly-dynamic and when lightpath restoration takes place. To reduce the backward blocking, the paper proposes two label preference (LP) schemes compliant with RSVP-TE message exchanges. LP schemes provide the destination node with a label identifying the preferred wavelength to reserve. The preferred label is computed in a distributed way during the forward signaling phase, with the objective of assigning disjoint wavelengths to reservation attempts that may contend the resources. Simulation results demonstrate that, compared to other schemes, LP schemes are effective in reducing the backward blocking during both lightpath provisioning and restoration, without negatively impacting the forward blocking.

Path state-based update of PCE traffic engineering database in wavelength switched optical networks

This letter proposes to use the path state approach for updating the Traffic Engineering Database (TED) of the Path Computation Element (PCE) in GMPLS controlled Wavelength Switched Optical Networks (WSONs). The proposed solution reduces both the lightpath blocking probability and the control plane load with respect to conventional updating schemes based on the link state approach.

Centralized vs. distributed approaches for encompassing physical impairments in transparent optical networks

Transparent optical mesh networks are an appealing solution to provide cost-effective high bandwidth connections eliminating the need of expensive intermediate electronic regenerators. However, the implementation of transparent optical networks requires to take into account physical impairment information for effective lightpath set-up. In this paper, we present two distributed solutions to encompass physical impairments based on enhancements of the GMPLS protocol suite. Specifically, both GMPLS routing protocol and signaling protocol extensions are presented and discussed. An alternative centralized approach based on an impairment-aware Path Computation Element (PCE) is also proposed. The distributed routing approach exhibits convergence limitations, while the distributed signaling approach is scalable and effective. The latter is then compared against the centralized PCE approach through simulations considering both a metro network and a more complex WDM network scenario. In addition, experimental implementations of the two approaches are presented. Results show the trade-off of the two approaches, demonstrating the general good performance in terms of lightpath set up time for both approaches.

A Scalable Space–Time Multi-plane Optical Interconnection Network Using Energy-Efficient Enabling Technologies [Invited]

This paper presents an energy-efficient multi-plane optical interconnection network to interconnect servers in a data center. The novel architecture uses the time domain to individually address each port within a card and the space domain to address each card. Optical enabling technologies passively time-compress serial packets by exploiting the wavelength domain and perform a broadcast-and-select to a destination card with minimum power dissipation. Scalability of both the physical layer and the overall power dissipation of the architecture is shown to be enhanced with respect to the existing interconnection network architectures based on space and wavelength domains. The space-time network architecture is scalable up to 216 ports with space-switches exhibiting energy efficiency of the order of picojoules per bit, thanks to the self-enabled semiconductor-optical-amplifier-based space-switches.

GMPLS-controlled dynamic translucent optical networks

The evolution of optical technologies has paved the way to the migration from opaque optical networks (i.e., networks in which the optical signal is electronically regenerated at each node) to transparent (i.e., all-optical) networks. Translucent optical networks (i.e., optical networks with sparse opto-electronic regeneration) enable the exploitation of the benefits of both opaque and transparent networks while providing a suitable solution for dynamic connections. Translucent optical networks with dynamic connections can be controlled by the GMPLS protocol suite. This article discusses the enhancements that the GMPLS suite requires for the control of dynamic translucent optical networks with quality of transmission guarantees. Such enhancements concern QoT-awareness and regenerator-awareness and can be achieved by collecting and disseminating the information on QoT and regenerator availability, respectively, and by efficiently leveraging such information for traffic engineering purposes. More specifically, the article proposes two distributed approaches, based on the routing protocol and the signaling protocol, for disseminating regenerator information in the GMPLS control plane. Moreover, three strategies are introduced to efficiently and dynamically designate the regeneration node(s) along the connection route. Routing and signaling approaches are compared in terms of blocking probability, setup time, and control plane load during provisioning and restoration.

Photonic Combinatorial Network for Contention Management in 160 Gb/s-Interconnection Networks Based on All-Optical 2

A modular photonic interconnection network based on a combination of basic 2times2 all-optical nodes including a photonic combinatorial network for the packet contention management is presented. The proposed architecture is synchronous, can handle optical time division multiplexed (OTDM) packets up to 160 Gb/s, exhibits self-routing capability, and very low switching latency. In such a scenario, OTDM has to be preferred to wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) because in the former case, the instantaneous packet power carries the information related to only one bit, making the signal processing based on instantaneous nonlinear interactions between packets and control signals more efficient. Moreover, OTDM can be used in interconnection networks without caring about the propagation impairments because of the very short length (<100 m) of the links in these networks. For such short-range networks, the packet synchronization can be solved at the network boundary in the electronic domain without the need of complex optical synchronizers. In this paper, we focus on a photonic combinatorial network able to detect the contentions, and to optically drive the contention resolution block and the switching control block. The implementation of the photonic combinatorial network is based on semiconductor devices, which makes the solution very promising in terms of compactness, stability, and power consumption. This implementation represents the first example of complex photonic combinatorial network for ultrafast digital processing. The network performance has been investigated for bit streams at 10 Gb/s in terms of bit error rate (BER) and contrast ratio. Moreover, the suitability of the 2times2 photonic node architecture exploiting the earlier mentioned combinatorial network has been verified at a bit rate up to 160 Gb/s. In this way, the potential of photonic digital processing for the next generation broad band and flexible interconnection networks has been demonstrated.

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The GMPLS assumption that all available labels are equal is reasonable in electronic networks but not always true in WDM optical networks where labels correspond to physical wavelengths. In this paper we present two schemes for collecting the preference for specific labels during GMPLS signaling. For this purpose a new use of the Suggested Label object is proposed, and a novel object called Suggested Vector is introduced. The approach is validated through simulations showing significant wavelength converter usage reduction in a WDM optical network