Siamak Azodolmolky

A survey on physical layer impairments aware routing and wavelength assignment algorithms in optical networks

Optical networks are moving from opaque and translucent architectures towards all-optical (transparent) architectures. In translucent architectures a small amount of regeneration (e.g. optical-electronic-optical conversion) is available in the network. The incorporation of the physical impairments in the routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) problem in transparent optical networks has recently received some attention from the research communities. This work compiles a comprehensive survey of the proposed algorithms that address this issue. The physical layer impairments and related classification in optical networks are initially presented followed by physical layer impairments (PLI) constrained and aware RWA algorithms. Algorithmic approach, current PLI-RWA proposals, impact of wavelength conversion on these algorithms, protection and resilience considerations, and proposed extensions to control planes are covered in this work. Further research topics are presented in this study.

Cloud computing networking: challenges and opportunities for innovations

Cloud computing materializes the vision of utility computing. Tenants can benefit from on-demand provisioning of compute, storage, and networking resources according to a pay-per-use business model. Tenants have only limited visibility and control over network resources. The owners of cloud computing facilities are also facing challenges in various aspects of providing and efficiently managing IaaS facilities. In this work we present the networking issues in IaaS and federation challenges that are currently addressed with existing technologies. We also present innovative software-defined networking proposals, which are applied to some of the challenges and could be used in future deployments as efficient solutions.

A tutorial on the flexible optical networking paradigm: State of the art, trends, and research challenges

Rigid fixed-grid wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical networks can no longer keep up with the emerging bandwidth-hungry and highly dynamic services in an efficient manner. As the available spectrum in optical fibers becomes occupied and is approaching fundamental limits, the research community has focused on seeking more advanced optical transmission and networking solutions that utilize the available bandwidth more effectively. To this end, the flexible/elastic optical networking paradigm has emerged as a way to offer efficient use of the available optical resources. In this work, we provide a comprehensive view of the different pieces composing the “flexible networking puzzle” with special attention given to capturing the occurring interactions between different research fields. Only when these interrelations are clearly defined, an optimal network-wide solution can be offered. Physical layer technological aspects, network optimization for flexible networks, and control plane aspects are examined. Furthermore, future research directions and open issues are discussed.

Experimental Demonstration of an Impairment Aware Network Planning and Operation Tool for Transparent/Translucent Optical Networks

Core optical networks using reconfigurable optical switches and tunable lasers appear to be on the road towards widespread deployment and could evolve to all-optical mesh networks in the coming future. Considering the impact of physical layer impairments in the planning and operation of all-optical (and translucent) networks is the main focus of the Dynamic Impairment Constraint Optical Networking (DICONET) project. The impairment aware network planning and operation tool (NPOT) is the main outcome of DICONET project, which is explained in detail in this paper. The key building blocks of the NPOT, consisting of network description repositories, the physical layer performance evaluator, the impairment aware routing and wavelength assignment engines, the component placement modules, failure handling, and the integration of NPOT in the control plane are the main contributions of this study. Besides, the experimental result of DICONET proposal for centralized and distributed control plane integration schemes and the performance of the failure handling in terms of restoration time is presented in this study.

An analytical model for software defined networking: A network calculus-based approach

Software defined networking (SDN) and OpenFlow as the outcome of recent research and development efforts provided unprecedented access into the forwarding plane of networking elements. This is achieved by decoupling the network control out of the forwarding devices. This separation paves the way for a more flexible and innovative networking. While SDN concept and OpenFlow find their ways into commercial deployments, performance evaluation of the SDN concept and its scalability, delay bounds, buffer sizing and similar performance metrics are not investigated in recent researches. In spite of usage of benchmark tools (like OFlops and Cbench), simulation studies and very few analytical models, there is a lack of analytical models to express the boundary condition of SDN deployment. In this work we present a model based on network calculus theory to describe the functionality of an SDN switch and controller. To the best of our knowledge, this is for the first time that network calculus framework is utilized to model the behavior of an SDN switch in terms of delay and queue length boundaries and the analysis of the buffer length of SDN controller and SDN switch. The presented model can be used for network designers and architects to get a quick view of the overall SDN network deployment performance and buffer sizing of SDN switches and controllers.

A dynamic impairment-aware networking solution for transparent mesh optical networks

Core networks of the future will have a translucent and eventually transparent optical structure. Ultra-high-speed end-to-end connectivity with high quality of service and high reliability will be realized through the exploitation of optimized protocols and lightpath routing algorithms. These algorithms will complement a flexible control and management plane integrated in the proposed solution. Physical layer impairments and optical performance are monitored and incorporated in impairment-aware lightpath routing algorithms. These algorithms will be integrated into a novel dynamic network planning tool that will consider dynamic traffic characteristics, a reconfigurable optical layer, and varying physical impairment and component characteristics. The network planning tool along with extended control planes will make it possible to realize the vision of optical transparency. This article presents a novel framework that addresses dynamic cross-layer network planning and optimization while considering the development of a future transport network infrastructure.

Experimental demonstration of centralized and distributed impairment-aware control plane schemes for dynamic transparent optical networks

We demonstrate and compare distributed and centralized impairment-aware control plane schemes for transparent optical networks with dynamic traffic. Experimental results show that distributed scheme yields one fifth of setup time required by previously reported alternatives.

SDN-based cloud computing networking

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a concept which provides the network operators and data centres to flexibly manage their networking equipment using software running on external servers. According to the SDN framework, the control and management of the networks, which is usually implemented in software, is decoupled from the data plane. On the other hand cloud computing materializes the vision of utility computing. Tenants can benefit from on-demand provisioning of networking, storage and compute resources according to a pay-per-use business model. In this work we present the networking issues in IaaS and networking and federation challenges that are currently addressed with existing technologies. We also present innovative software-define networking proposals, which are applied to some of the challenges and could be used in future deployments as efficient solutions. cloud computing networking and the potential contribution of software-defined networking along with some performance evaluation results are presented in this paper.

Performance Evaluation of a Scalable Software-Defined Networking Deployment

Since the introduction of software-defined networking (SDN), scalability has been a major concern. There are different approaches to address this issue, and most of them can be addressed without losing the benefits of SDN. SDN provides a level of flexibility that can accommodate network programming and management at scale. In this work we present the recent approaches, which are proposed to address scalability issue of SDN deployment. We particularly select a hierarchical approach for our performance evaluation study. A mathematical framework based on network calculus is presented and the performance of the selected scalable SDN deployment in terms of upper bound of event processing and buffer sizing of the root SDN controller is reported.

A Novel Offline Physical Layer Impairments Aware RWA Algorithm With Dedicated Path Protection Consideration

Physical layer impairments accumulate as light propagates through a lightpath in the transparent optical networks. Therefore, it is possible to provision a lightpath, while its quality of transmission (QoT) does not meet the required threshold. Considering the physical layer impairments in the network planning phase gives rise to a set of offline Impairments Aware Routing and Wavelength Assignment (IA-RWA) algorithms. There are very few offline IA-RWA algorithms that consider dedicated path protection demands. In this work we propose a novel offline IA-RWA algorithm, called Rahyab and perform a comparative performance evaluation study, which considers two enhanced algorithms from the literature. Simulation results indicates that demand pre-processing, diverse routing, and adaptive wavelength assignment are the main reasons of lower blocking rate of Rahyab algorithm compared to the selected algorithms.