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.

/pdf/wdm-optical-communication-networks-progress-and-challenges-323vm4b0nm.pdf

WDM optical communication networks: progress and challenges

To support bursty traffic on the Internet (and especially WWW) efficiently, optical burst switching (OBS) is proposed as a way to streamline both protocols and hardware in building the future gener...

Optical burst switching (OBS) - a new paradigm for an optical Internet

Traffic grooming refers to techniques used to combine low-speed traffic streams onto high-speed wavelengths in order to minimize the networkwide cost in terms of line terminating equipment and/or electronic switching. Such techniques become increasingly important for emerging network technologies, including SONET/WDM rings and MPLS/MP/spl lambda/S backbones, for which traffic grooming is essential. In this article we formally define the traffic grooming problem, and we provide a general formulation that captures the features of a wide range of problem variants. We then present a comprehensive comparative survey of the literature that unveils the significant amount of research on this subject (the traffic grooming past). We also offer a broad set of ambitious research directions (the traffic grooming future) that are motivated by the exciting new challenges arising with the advent of MP/spl lambda/S technology.

Traffic grooming in WDM networks: past and future

The emergence of wavelength-division multiplexing technology has led to a tremendous increase In the available transmission capacity in wide area networks. Consequently, these networks may no longer be limited by the transmission bandwidth, but rather by the processing capability of electronic switches, routers, and multiplexers in the network. This realization has led to a new wave of research aimed at overcoming the electronic bottleneck by providing optical bypass at the WDM layer. Traffic grooming can be used as a bypass mechanism by which low-rate circuits are assigned to wavelengths in order to minimize the amount of electronic multiplexing equipment. This topic has received a significant amount of attention in both the research and commercial arenas. We give an overview of the traffic grooming problem and survey some representative work in this area. While most work has focused on grooming in SONET rings, grooming traffic in general mesh networks is an important emerging problem.

Traffic grooming in WDM networks

As the operation of our fiber-optic backbone networks migrates from interconnected SONET rings to arbitrary mesh topology, traffic grooming on wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) mesh networks becomes an extremely important research problem. To address this problem, we propose a new generic graph model for traffic grooming in heterogeneous WDM mesh networks. The novelty of our model is that, by only manipulating the edges of the auxiliary graph created by our model and the weights of these edges, our model can achieve various objectives using different grooming policies, while taking into account various constraints such as transceivers, wavelengths, wavelength-conversion capabilities, and grooming capabilities. Based on the auxiliary graph, we develop an integrated traffic-grooming algorithm (IGABAG) and an integrated grooming procedure (INGPROC) which jointly solve several traffic-grooming subproblems by simply applying the shortest-path computation method. Different grooming policies can be represented by different weight-assignment functions, and the performance of these grooming policies are compared under both nonblocking scenario and blocking scenario. The IGABAG can be applied to both static and dynamic traffic grooming. In static grooming, the traffic-selection scheme is key to achieving good network performance. We propose several traffic-selection schemes based on this model and we evaluate their performance for different network topologies.

/pdf/a-novel-generic-graph-model-for-traffic-grooming-in-3up1q2lnjr.pdf

A novel generic graph model for traffic grooming in heterogeneous WDM mesh networks

In high-speed SONET rings with point-to-point WDM links, the cost of SONET add-drop multiplexers (S-ADMs) can be dominantly high. However, by grooming traffic (i.e., multiplexing lower-rate streams) appropriately and using wavelength ADMs (WADMs), the number of S-ADMs can be dramatically reduced. In this paper, we propose optimal or near-optimal algorithms for traffic grooming and wavelength assignment to reduce both the number of wavelengths and the number of S-ADMs. The algorithms proposed are generic in that they can be applied to both unidirectional and bidirectional rings having an arbitrary number of nodes under both uniform and nonuniform (i.e., arbitrary) traffic with an arbitrary grooming factor. Some lower bounds on the number of wavelengths and S-ADMs required for a given traffic pattern are derived, and used to determine the optimality of the proposed algorithms. Our study shows that using the proposed algorithms, these lower bounds can he closely approached in most cases or even achieved in some cases. In addition, even when using a minimum number of wavelengths, the savings in S-ADMs due to traffic grooming (and the use of WADMs) are significant, especially for large networks.

/pdf/an-effective-and-comprehensive-approach-for-traffic-grooming-1ongjsql8k.pdf

An effective and comprehensive approach for traffic grooming and wavelength assignment in SONET/WDM rings

As WDM technology matures, IP over WDM multicast will become a challenging new topic. Supporting multicast at the WDM layer provides additional advantages, but also raises many new issues that do not exist in IP multicast. For example, the limitation on the light splitting capability of switches is one major difficulty in WDM multicast, and in addition, the limitations on both the wavelength conversion capability and optical buffer space may affect multicast routing as well. In this paper, we focus on the IP over WDM multicast routing problem, i.e. how to construct multicast trees at the WDM layer based on IP multicast routing protocols. More specifically, we study how label switched paths for optical label switching can be set up for multicast traffic. We propose two approaches, one without modification of existing IP multicast routing protocols, and the other with modification of existing IP multicast routing protocols.

Xijun Zhang

Papers

An effective and comprehensive approach for traffic grooming and wavelength assignment in SONET/WDM rings

On fundamental issues in IP over WDM multicast