In a wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) optical network, the failure of network elements (e.g., fiber links and cross connects) may cause the failure of several optical channels, thereby leading to large data losses. This study examines different approaches to protect a mesh-based WDM optical network from such failures. These approaches are based on two survivability paradigms: 1) path protection/restoration and 2) link protection/restoration. The study examines the wavelength capacity requirements, and routing and wavelength assignment of primary and backup paths for path and link protection and proposes distributed protocols for path and link restoration. The study also examines the protection-switching time and the restoration time for each of these schemes, and the susceptibility of these schemes to multiple link failures. The numerical results obtained for a representative network topology with random traffic demands demonstrate that there is a tradeoff between the capacity utilization and the susceptibility to multiple link failures. We find that, on one hand, path protection provides significant capacity savings over link protection, and shared protection provides significant savings over dedicated protection; while on the other hand, path protection is more susceptible to multiple link failures than link protection, and shared protection is more susceptible to multiple link failures than dedicated protection. We formulate a model of protection-switching times for the different protection schemes based on a fully distributed control network. We propose distributed control protocols for path and link restoration. Numerical results obtained by simulating these protocols indicate that, for a representative network topology, path restoration has a better restoration efficiency than link restoration, and link restoration has a faster restoration time compared with path restoration.

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Survivable WDM mesh networks

While optical-transmission techniques have been researched for quite some time, optical "networking" studies have been conducted only over the past dozen years or so. The field has matured enormously over this time: many papers and Ph.D. dissertations have been produced, a number of prototypes and testbeds have been built, several books have been written, a large number of startups have been formed, and optical WDM technology is being deployed in the marketplace at a very rapid rate. The objective of this paper is to summarize the basic optical networking approaches, report on the WDM deployment strategies of two major US carriers, and outline the current research and development trends on WDM optical networks.

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WDM optical communication networks: progress and challenges

This investigation considers optical networks which employ wavelength cross-connects that enable the establishment of wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) channels, between node-pairs. In such and other networks, the failure of a network element (e.g., fiber link, cross-connect, etc.) may cause the failure of several optical channels, thereby leading to large data losses. This study examines different approaches to protect mesh based WDM optical networks from single-link failures. These approaches are based on two basic survivability paradigms: (a) path protection/restoration, and (b) link protection/restoration. In path- and link-protection schemes, backup paths and wavelengths are reserved in advance at the time of call setup. Path- and link-restoration schemes are dynamic schemes in which backup paths are discovered (from the spare capacity in the network) upon the occurrence of a failure. In part 1 of this study presented in this paper, we formulated integer linear programs to determine the capacity requirements for the above protection schemes for a static traffic demand.

Survivable WDM mesh networks. Part I-Protection

We present a new algorithm which creates redundant trees on arbitrary node-redundant or link-redundant networks. These trees are such that any node is connected to the common root of the trees by at least one of the trees in case of node or link failure. Our scheme provides rapid preplanned recovery of communications with great flexibility in the topology design. Unlike previous algorithms, our algorithm can establish two redundant trees in the case of a node failing in the network. In the case of failure of a communications link, our algorithm provides a superset of the previously known trees.

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Redundant trees for preplanned recovery in arbitrary vertex-redundant or edge-redundant graphs

The explosion of data traffic and the availability of enormous bandwidth via dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) and optical amplifier (OA) technologies make it important to study optical layer networking and restoration. This paper is concerned with fast distributed restoration and provisioning for generic mesh-based optical networks. We consider two problems of practical importance: determining the best restoration route for each wavelength demand, given the network topology and the capacities and primary routes of all demands, and determining primary and restoration routes for each wavelength demand to minimize network capacity and cost. The approach we propose for both problems is based on precomputing. For each problem, we describe specific algorithms used for computing routes. We also describe endpoint-based failure detection, message flows, and cross-connect actions for execution of fast restorations. Finally, we report test results for large carrier-scale networks that include both the computational performance of the optimization algorithms and the restoration speed obtained by simulation. Our results indicate that subsecond restoration, high capacity efficiency, and scalability can be achieved without fault isolation and with moderate processing. We also discuss methods for scaling algorithms to problems with very large numbers of demands. The wavelength routing and restoration algorithms, the failure detection, and the message exchange and activation architectures we propose are collectively known as WaveStar™ advanced routing platform.

W. D. Grover

Papers

The selfhealing network : A fast distributed restoration technique for networks using digital crossconnect machines