Wiem Samoud

Dynamic mitigation of EDFA power excursions with machine learning

Dynamic optical networking has promising potential to support the rapidly changing traffic demands in metro and long-haul networks. However, the improvement in dynamicity is hindered by wavelength-dependent power excursions in gain-controlled erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA) when channels change rapidly. We introduce a general approach that leverages machine learning (ML) to characterize and mitigate the power excursions of EDFA systems with different equipment and scales. An ML engine is developed and experimentally validated to show accurate predictions of the power dynamics in cascaded EDFAs. Recommended channel provisioning based on the ML predictions achieves within 1% error of the lowest possible power excursion over 94% of the time. We also showcase significant mitigation of EDFA power excursions in super-channel provisioning when compared to the first-fit wavelength assignment algorithm.

Investigation of a hybrid optical-electronic switch supporting different service classes

Optical fiber is considered the most competitive wired transmission support thanks to its low attenuation, wide optical bandwidth, long reach, and low cost. However, optics do not yet perform higher functionalities such as switching. In fact, all-optical switches face a contention issue, due to the lack of practical optical buffers. Thus, the switching function is still performed electronically, which requires energetically costly optical-to-electronic conversions. The energy consumption is a critical issue within the growing data traffic. Thus, a proposition of hybrid switch architecture supplementing optical switch with an electronic buffer. In this paper, we propose to investigate the performance of hybrid switch that supports different priority classes where the priority is defined in terms of Packet Loss Ratio (PLR). We show that the hybrid switch is a good trade off since it allows significant performance improvements towards a buffer-less all optical switch in terms of PLR and sustainable load, for relatively few electronic ports of the buffer, which would reduce energy consumption compared to an electronic switch.

Comparison between interchangeable and WDM channels for hybrid optoelectronic switch

Taking into account different packets priorities, we investigate the performance of a hybrid opto-electronic switch where the connected azimuths support WDM channels. A comparison is given with the case of interchangeable channels, which leads us to raise the question on the limits of optical switches.

Performance improvements of hybrid opto-electronic packet switch using SDM in addition to WDM

We investigate the performance improvements of a hybrid opto-electronic switch thanks to the interchangeability provided by the use of SDM in addition to WDM in the connected links.

Recent advances in optical and hybrid packet switching

The future of Internet depends on meeting ever-increasing capacity needs while curbing the energy consumptions uncontrolled growth in data networks, especially in switching. Optics has a tremendous potential to solve these challenges, but the lack of practical optical buffers leaves optical packet switches vulnerable to contention, hindering their use even at moderate network loads. Recent developments in optical switching devices (InP- and silicon-based), hybrid packet switching (using electronic buffers in optical switches) and network architectures (where upper layers could tolerate some loss in the optical packet layer) show a possibility that optical packet switches are poised to make a comeback in practical networks.

Investigation of hybrid opto-electronic packet switch connected to SDM fibers considering various traffic distributions

Performance analysis of an opto-electronic packet switch using combined SDM and WDM are presented. The simulations consider a switch connected to 7-core fibers. We point out the benefits of this configuration in various traffic distributions in terms of sustainable load, latency and energy savings for several packet classes.

Performance analysis of a hybrid opto-electronic packet switch using WDM technology

We investigate the performance of a hybrid optoelectronic switch where the connected azimuths support WDM channels, taking into account different packet classes. A compromise is discussed between the energy savings and the performance improvement given by using shared wavelength converters.

Can software-defined networks turn impractical optical functionalities into network-savers?

Despite a long history of research into advanced optical functionalities, they have seen little use in practical networks, chiefly because they seldom fit in with existing network paradigms, especially under nonideal conditions. Software-defined networks, on the other hand, aim at expressing complex network architectures in a simpler way. We seek to determine if such an approach can help design networks that fully use the potential of optical functionalities and, if so, to quantify their benefits.