Abstract

International audience; Optical Packet Switching (OPS) is among the most promising solutions for next generation metropolitan networks. The increase of packet-based services (video on demand, etc.) is pushing metropolitan networks providers to renew their infrastructures. Today, metropolitan networks are based on SONET/SDH circuit-switched networks, which are becoming inefficient and costly to support new requirements of quality of service and bandwidth of sporadic packet-based traffic. To solve this problem, many new network solutions are proposed recently, including Next Generation SONET/SDH, Resilient Packet Ring, etc. Among others, the optical networking technology appears a good choice thanks to its following benefits: huge transmission capacity, high reliability, and high availability. This paper is devoted to provide an overview of the metropolitan network infrastructure and particularly to its evolution towards OPS networks. It also highlights performance issues in terms of optical packet format, medium access control protocol and quality of service, as well as traffic engineering issue

Abstract

International audience; ECOFRAME ring is a novel network technology for the metropolitan transport that exploits optical packet switching and optical transparency. Each station in this ring is equipped with a tunable transmitter and a number of fixed receivers, able to extract traffic from a predefined set of wavelengths (number of wvl. ≥ 1). Receivers can be shared by different destinations, of- fering to this technology an ability to achieve significant CAPEX savings by using the optimum number of network resources, if properly dimensioned. In this paper we present a wide set of conclusions obtained when applying different network planning and traffic engineering tools in investigating an optimal design and evaluating performances of an ECOFRAME ring. More precisely, regarding network planning issues, we have estimated equipment costs, identified different network configurations and studied their impact on ring performances. Finally, we have found the potential savings when ring is properly designed. On the other hand, based on the previous results, we have identified the optimal ring configuration from price, capacity and scheduling point of view, suggested a cheap and fair scheduling policy for a general case and evaluated the positive impact of statistical multiplexing due to the WDM dimension, on the ring capacity. We have shown that an OPS ring that is properly dimensioned can achieve a solid QoS performance without slot reservation mechanisms.

Abstract

This paper reports a summary of the joint research activities on Optical Core Networks within the e-Photon-ONe+ project. It provides a reasonable overview of the topics considered of interest by the European research community and supports the idea of building joint research activities that can leverage on the expertise of different research groups. Thisworkwas supported by the e-Photon/ONe+ and BONE (“Building the Future Optical Network in Europe”) projects funded by the European Commission through the 6th and 7th ICT-Framework Programme