Performance issues in optical burst/packet switching

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-01524-3_8This chapter summarises the activities on optical packet switching (OPS) and optical burst switching (OBS) carried out by the COST 291 partners in the last 4 years. It consists of an introduction, five sections with contributions on five different specific topics, and a final section dedicated to the conclusions. Each section contains an introductive state-of-the-art description of the specific topic and at least one contribution on that topic. The conclusions give some points on the current situation of the OPS/OBS paradigms

Improving Routing Efficiency, Fairness, Differentiated Servises And Throughput In Optical Networks

Wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical networks are rapidly becoming the technology of choice in next-generation Internet architectures. This dissertation addresses the important issues of improving four aspects of optical networks, namely, routing efficiency, fairness, differentiated quality of service (QoS) and throughput. A new approach for implementing efficient routing and wavelength assignment in WDM networks is proposed and evaluated. In this approach, the state of a multiple-fiber link is represented by a compact bitmap computed as the logical union of the bitmaps of the free wavelengths in the fibers of this link. A modified Dijkstra\u27s shortest path algorithm and a wavelength assignment algorithm are developed using fast logical operations on the bitmap representation. In optical burst switched (OBS) networks, the burst dropping probability increases as the number of hops in the lightpath of the burst increases. Two schemes are proposed and evaluated to alleviate this unfairness. The two schemes have simple logic, and alleviate the beat-down unfairness problem without negatively impacting the overall throughput of the system. Two similar schemes to provide differentiated services in OBS networks are introduced. A new scheme to improve the fairness of OBS networks based on burst preemption is presented. The scheme uses carefully designed constraints to avoid excessive wasted channel reservations, reduce cascaded useless preemptions, and maintain healthy throughput levels. A new scheme to improve the throughput of OBS networks based on burst preemption is presented. An analytical model is developed to compute the throughput of the network for the special case when the network has a ring topology and the preemption weight is based solely on burst size. The analytical model is quite accurate and gives results close to those obtained by simulation. Finally, a preemption-based scheme for the concurrent improvement of throughput and burst fairness in OBS networks is proposed and evaluated. The scheme uses a preemption weight consisting of two terms: the first term is a function of the size of the burst and the second term is the product of the hop count times the length of the lightpath of the burst

Quality of Service Aware Call Admission Control in Cell Based Multi-Service Photonic Network

The article tackles the problem of quality of service assurance in photonic networks. The idea of multi-service photonic network model with the coexistence of optical circuit and packet switching mechanisms and cell communication is used as a basis for service differentiation in the optical domain. Cell loss ratio as a key performance indicator determines the required optical switching mechanism. Service provisioning is performed using call admission control mechanism with real-time cell loss ratio estimation procedure. Service blocking probability calculation utilizes discrete event simulation of service provision and teardown requests applied to core network topology from COST 266 project. Three simulation scenarios are included in the analysis – pure optical packet switching network, and coexistence of optical packet and circuit switching with and without possibility of communication redirection between the switching mechanisms. Simulation scenarios are additionally altered with the cell loss ratio constraint and number of delay lines

Design of Routers for Optical Burst Switched Networks

Optical Burst Switching (OBS) is an experimental network technology that enables the construction of very high capacity routers using optical data paths and electronic control. In this dissertation, we study the design of network components that are needed to build an OBS network. Specifically, we study the design of the switches that form the optical data path through the network. An OBS network that switches data across wavelength channels requires wave-length converting switches to construct an OBS router. We study one particular design of wavelength converting switches that uses tunable lasers and wavelength grating routers. This design is interesting because wavelength grating routers are passive devices and are much less complex and hence less expensive than optical crossbars. We show how the routing problem for these switches can be formulated as a combinatorial puzzle or game, in which the design of the game board determines key performance characteristics of the switch. In this disertation, we use this formu-lation to facilitate the design of switches and associated routing strategies with good performance. We then introduce time sliced optical burst switching (TSOBS), a variant of OBS that switches data in the time domain rather that the wavelength domain. This eliminates the need for wavelength converters, the largest single cost component of systems that switch in the wavelength domain. We study the performance of TSOBS networks and discuss various design issues. One of the main components that is needed to build a TSOBS router is an optical time slot interchanger (OTSI). We explore various design options for OTSIs. Finally, we discuss the issues involved in the design of network interfaces that transmit the data from hosts that use legacy protocols into a TSOBS network. Ag-gregation and load balancing are the main issues that determine the performance of a TSOBS network and we develop and evaluate methods for both

Multi-MetaRing fairness control in a WDM folded-bus architecture

The paper deals with fairness issues in a slotted, single-hop, WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing) optical architecture, based on a folded bus topology, previously proposed as a broadband access system or as a metro network. The peculiar fairness problem arising in this folded bus based architecture is addressed and an extension of the MetaRing protocol to the WDM scenario, named Multi-MetaRing, is proposed. Feasible Multi-MetaRing strategies are defined and analyzed. Both fair access and high aggregate network throughput can be achieved with a low complexity distributed access protocol by properly handling node access through all WDM channel