Characterization, design and re-optimization on multi-layer optical networks

L'augment de volum de tràfic IP provocat per l'increment de serveis multimèdia com HDTV o vídeo conferència planteja nous reptes als operadors de xarxa per tal de proveir transmissió de dades eficient. Tot i que les xarxes mallades amb multiplexació per divisió de longitud d'ona (DWDM) suporten connexions òptiques de gran velocitat, aquestes xarxes manquen de flexibilitat per suportar tràfic d’inferior granularitat, fet que provoca un pobre ús d'ample de banda. Per fer front al transport d'aquest tràfic heterogeni, les xarxes multicapa representen la millor solució. Les xarxes òptiques multicapa permeten optimitzar la capacitat mitjançant l'empaquetament de connexions de baixa velocitat dins de connexions òptiques de gran velocitat. Durant aquesta operació, es crea i modifica constantment una topologia virtual dinàmica gràcies al pla de control responsable d’aquestes operacions. Donada aquesta dinamicitat, un ús sub-òptim de recursos pot existir a la xarxa en un moment donat. En aquest context, una re-optimizació periòdica dels recursos utilitzats pot ser aplicada, millorant així l'ús de recursos. Aquesta tesi està dedicada a la caracterització, planificació, i re-optimització de xarxes òptiques multicapa de nova generació des d’un punt de vista unificat incloent optimització als nivells de capa física, capa òptica, capa virtual i pla de control. Concretament s'han desenvolupat models estadístics i de programació matemàtica i meta-heurístiques. Aquest objectiu principal s'ha assolit mitjançant cinc objectius concrets cobrint diversos temes oberts de recerca. En primer lloc, proposem una metodologia estadística per millorar el càlcul del factor Q en problemes d'assignació de ruta i longitud d'ona considerant interaccions físiques (IA-RWA). Amb aquest objectiu, proposem dos models estadístics per computar l'efecte XPM (el coll d'ampolla en termes de computació i complexitat) per problemes IA-RWA, demostrant la precisió d’ambdós models en el càlcul del factor Q en escenaris reals de tràfic. En segon lloc i fixant-nos a la capa òptica, presentem un nou particionament del conjunt de longituds d'ona que permet maximitzar, respecte el cas habitual, la quantitat de tràfic extra proveït en entorns de protecció compartida. Concretament, definim diversos models estadístics per estimar la quantitat de tràfic donat un grau de servei objectiu, i diferents models de planificació de xarxa amb l'objectiu de maximitzar els ingressos previstos i el valor actual net de la xarxa. Després de resoldre aquests problemes per xarxes reals, concloem que la nostra proposta maximitza ambdós objectius. En tercer lloc, afrontem el disseny de xarxes multicapa robustes davant de fallida simple a la capa IP/MPLS i als enllaços de fibra. Per resoldre aquest problema eficientment, proposem un enfocament basat en sobre-dimensionar l'equipament de la capa IP/MPLS i recuperar la connectivitat i el comparem amb la solució convencional basada en duplicar la capa IP/MPLS. Després de comparar solucions mitjançant models ILP i heurístiques, concloem que la nostra solució permet obtenir un estalvi significatiu en termes de costos de desplegament. Com a quart objectiu, introduïm un mecanisme adaptatiu per reduir l'ús de ports opto-electrònics (O/E) en xarxes multicapa sota escenaris de tràfic dinàmic. Una formulació ILP i diverses heurístiques són desenvolupades per resoldre aquest problema, que permet reduir significativament l’ús de ports O/E en temps molt curts. Finalment, adrecem el problema de disseny resilient del pla de control GMPLS. Després de proposar un nou model analític per quantificar la resiliència en topologies mallades de pla de control, usem aquest model per proposar un problema de disseny de pla de control. Proposem un procediment iteratiu lineal i una heurística i els usem per resoldre instàncies reals, arribant a la conclusió que es pot reduir significativament la quantitat d'enllaços del pla de control sense afectar la qualitat de servei a la xarxa.The explosion of IP traffic due to the increase of IP-based multimedia services such as HDTV or video conferencing poses new challenges to network operators to provide a cost-effective data transmission. Although Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) meshed transport networks support high-speed optical connections, these networks lack the flexibility to support sub-wavelength traffic leading to poor bandwidth usage. To cope with the transport of that huge and heterogeneous amount of traffic, multilayer networks represent the most accepted architectural solution. Multilayer optical networks allow optimizing network capacity by means of packing several low-speed traffic streams into higher-speed optical connections (lightpaths). During this operation, a dynamic virtual topology is created and modified the whole time thanks to a control plane responsible for the establishment, maintenance, and release of connections. Because of this dynamicity, a suboptimal allocation of resources may exist at any time. In this context, a periodically resource reallocation could be deployed in the network, thus improving network resource utilization. This thesis is devoted to the characterization, planning, and re-optimization of next-generation multilayer networks from an integral perspective including physical layer, optical layer, virtual layer, and control plane optimization. To this aim, statistical models, mathematical programming models and meta-heuristics are developed. More specifically, this main objective has been attained by developing five goals covering different open issues. First, we provide a statistical methodology to improve the computation of the Q-factor for impairment-aware routing and wavelength assignment problems (IA-RWA). To this aim we propose two statistical models to compute the Cross-Phase Modulation variance (which represents the bottleneck in terms of computation time and complexity) in off-line and on-line IA-RWA problems, proving the accuracy of both models when computing Q-factor values in real traffic scenarios. Second and moving to the optical layer, we present a new wavelength partitioning scheme that allows maximizing the amount of extra traffic provided in shared path protected environments compared with current solutions. Specifically, we define several statistical models to estimate the traffic intensity given a target grade of service, and different network planning problems for maximizing the expected revenues and net present value. After solving these problems for real networks, we conclude that our proposed scheme maximizes both revenues and NPV. Third, we tackle the design of survivable multilayer networks against single failures at the IP/MPLS layer and WSON links. To efficiently solve this problem, we propose a new approach based on over-dimensioning IP/MPLS devices and lightpath connectivity and recovery and we compare it against the conventional solution based on duplicating backbone IP/MPLS nodes. After evaluating both approaches by means of ILP models and heuristic algorithms, we conclude that our proposed approach leads to significant CAPEX savings. Fourth, we introduce an adaptive mechanism to reduce the usage of opto-electronic (O/E) ports of IP/MPLS-over-WSON multilayer networks in dynamic scenarios. A ILP formulation and several heuristics are developed to solve this problem, which allows significantly reducing the usage of O/E ports in very short running times. Finally, we address the design of resilient control plane topologies in GMPLS-enabled transport networks. After proposing a novel analytical model to quantify the resilience in mesh control plane topologies, we use this model to propose a problem to design the control plane topology. An iterative model and a heuristic are proposed and used to solve real instances, concluding that a significant reduction in the number of control plane links can be performed without affecting the quality of service of the network

Survivability aspects of future optical backbone networks

In huidige glasvezelnetwerken kan een enkele vezel een gigantische hoeveelheid data dragen, ruwweg het equivalent van 25 miljoen gelijktijdige telefoongesprekken. Hierdoor zullen netwerkstoringen, zoals breuken van een glasvezelkabel, de communicatie van een groot aantal eindgebruikers verstoren. Netwerkoperatoren kiezen er dan ook voor om hun netwerk zo te bouwen dat zulke grote storingen automatisch opgevangen worden. Dit proefschrift spitst zich toe op twee aspecten rond de overleefbaarheid in toekomstige optische netwerken. De eerste doelstelling die beoogd wordt is het tot stand brengen vanrobuuste dataverbindingen over meerdere netwerken. Door voldoende betrouwbare verbindingen tot stand te brengen over een infrastructuur die niet door een enkele entiteit wordt beheerd kan men bv. weredwijd Internettelevisie van hoge kwaliteit aanbieden. De bestudeerde oplossing heeft niet enkel tot doel om deze zeer betrouwbare verbinding te berekenen, maar ook om dit te bewerkstelligen met een minimum aan gebruikte netwerkcapaciteit. De tweede doelstelling was om een antwoord te formuleren om de vraag hoe het toepassen van optische schakelsystemen gebaseerd op herconfigureerbare optische multiplexers een impact heeft op de overleefbaarheid van een optisch netwerk. Bij lagere volumes hebben optisch geschakelde netwerken weinig voordeel van dergelijke gesofistikeerde methoden. Elektronisch geschakelde netwerken vertonen geen afhankelijkheid van het datavolume en hebben altijd baat bij optimalisatie

Virtualisation and resource allocation in MECEnabled metro optical networks

The appearance of new network services and the ever-increasing network traffic and number of connected devices will push the evolution of current communication networks towards the Future Internet. In the area of optical networks, wavelength routed optical networks (WRONs) are evolving to elastic optical networks (EONs) in which, thanks to the use of OFDM or Nyquist WDM, it is possible to create super-channels with custom-size bandwidth. The basic element in these networks is the lightpath, i.e., all-optical circuits between two network nodes. The establishment of lightpaths requires the selection of the route that they will follow and the portion of the spectrum to be used in order to carry the requested traffic from the source to the destination node. That problem is known as the routing and spectrum assignment (RSA) problem, and new algorithms must be proposed to address this design problem. Some early studies on elastic optical networks studied gridless scenarios, in which a slice of spectrum of variable size is assigned to a request. However, the most common approach to the spectrum allocation is to divide the spectrum into slots of fixed width and allocate multiple, consecutive spectrum slots to each lightpath, depending on the requested bandwidth. Moreover, EONs also allow the proposal of more flexible routing and spectrum assignment techniques, like the split-spectrum approach in which the request is divided into multiple "sub-lightpaths". In this thesis, four RSA algorithms are proposed combining two different levels of flexibility with the well-known k-shortest paths and first fit heuristics. After comparing the performance of those methods, a novel spectrum assignment technique, Best Gap, is proposed to overcome the inefficiencies emerged when combining the first fit heuristic with highly flexible networks. A simulation study is presented to demonstrate that, thanks to the use of Best Gap, EONs can exploit the network flexibility and reduce the blocking ratio. On the other hand, operators must face profound architectural changes to increase the adaptability and flexibility of networks and ease their management. Thanks to the use of network function virtualisation (NFV), the necessary network functions that must be applied to offer a service can be deployed as virtual appliances hosted by commodity servers, which can be located in data centres, network nodes or even end-user premises. The appearance of new computation and networking paradigms, like multi-access edge computing (MEC), may facilitate the adaptation of communication networks to the new demands. Furthermore, the use of MEC technology will enable the possibility of installing those virtual network functions (VNFs) not only at data centres (DCs) and central offices (COs), traditional hosts of VFNs, but also at the edge nodes of the network. Since data processing is performed closer to the enduser, the latency associated to each service connection request can be reduced. MEC nodes will be usually connected between them and with the DCs and COs by optical networks. In such a scenario, deploying a network service requires completing two phases: the VNF-placement, i.e., deciding the number and location of VNFs, and the VNF-chaining, i.e., connecting the VNFs that the traffic associated to a service must transverse in order to establish the connection. In the chaining process, not only the existence of VNFs with available processing capacity, but the availability of network resources must be taken into account to avoid the rejection of the connection request. Taking into consideration that the backhaul of this scenario will be usually based on WRONs or EONs, it is necessary to design the virtual topology (i.e., the set of lightpaths established in the networks) in order to transport the tra c from one node to another. The process of designing the virtual topology includes deciding the number of connections or lightpaths, allocating them a route and spectral resources, and finally grooming the traffic into the created lightpaths. Lastly, a failure in the equipment of a node in an NFV environment can cause the disruption of the SCs traversing the node. This can cause the loss of huge amounts of data and affect thousands of end-users. In consequence, it is key to provide the network with faultmanagement techniques able to guarantee the resilience of the established connections when a node fails. For the mentioned reasons, it is necessary to design orchestration algorithms which solve the VNF-placement, chaining and network resource allocation problems in 5G networks with optical backhaul. Moreover, some versions of those algorithms must also implements protection techniques to guarantee the resilience system in case of failure. This thesis makes contribution in that line. Firstly, a genetic algorithm is proposed to solve the VNF-placement and VNF-chaining problems in a 5G network with optical backhaul based on star topology: GASM (genetic algorithm for effective service mapping). Then, we propose a modification of that algorithm in order to be applied to dynamic scenarios in which the reconfiguration of the planning is allowed. Furthermore, we enhanced the modified algorithm to include a learning step, with the objective of improving the performance of the algorithm. In this thesis, we also propose an algorithm to solve not only the VNF-placement and VNF-chaining problems but also the design of the virtual topology, considering that a WRON is deployed as the backhaul network connecting MEC nodes and CO. Moreover, a version including individual VNF protection against node failure has been also proposed and the effect of using shared/dedicated and end-to-end SC/individual VNF protection schemes are also analysed. Finally, a new algorithm that solves the VNF-placement and chaining problems and the virtual topology design implementing a new chaining technique is also proposed. Its corresponding versions implementing individual VNF protection are also presented. Furthermore, since the method works with any type of WDM mesh topologies, a technoeconomic study is presented to compare the effect of using different network topologies in both the network performance and cost.Departamento de Teoría de la Señal y Comunicaciones e Ingeniería TelemáticaDoctorado en Tecnologías de la Información y las Telecomunicacione

Investigation of performance issues affecting optical circuit and packet switched WDM networks

Optical switching represents the next step in the evolution of optical networks. This thesis describes work that was carried out to examine performance issues which can occur in two distinct varieties of optical switching networks. Slow optical switching in which lightpaths are requested, provisioned and torn down when no longer required is known as optical circuit switching (OCS). Services enabled by OCS include wavelength routing, dynamic bandwidth allocation and protection switching. With network elements such as reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs) and optical cross connects (OXCs) now being deployed along with the generalized multiprotocol label switching (GMPLS) control plane this represents the current state of the art in commercial networks. These networks often employ erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) to boost the optical signal to noise ratio of the WDM channels and as channel configurations change, wavelength dependent gain variations in the EDFAs can lead to channel power divergence that can result in significant performance degradation. This issue is examined in detail using a reconfigurable wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) network testbed and results show the severe impact that channel reconfiguration can have on transmission performance. Following the slow switching work the focus shifts to one of the key enabling technologies for fast optical switching, namely the tunable laser. Tunable lasers which can switch on the nanosecond timescale will be required in the transmitters and wavelength converters of optical packet switching networks. The switching times and frequency drifts, both of commercially available lasers, and of novel devices are investigated and performance issues which can arise due to this frequency drift are examined. An optical packet switching transmitter based on a novel label switching technique and employing one of the fast tunable lasers is designed and employed in a dual channel WDM packet switching system. In depth performance evaluations of this labelling scheme and packet switching system show the detrimental impact that wavelength drift can have on such systems

Inside all-optical networks

Imagine a world where lightning speed Internet is as common as telephones today. Imagine when light, the fastest moving thing in the universe, is the signal-carrying transport medium. Imagine when bandwidth no more remains a constraint for any application. Imagine when imagination is the only limit! This all can be made possible with only one technology and that is optical communication. Optical networks have thus far provided a realization to a greater extent to the unlimited bandwidth dreams of this era, but as the demands are increasing, the electro-optic conversions seem to become bottlenecks in blended optical networks. The only answer to this is a complete migration to `All-Optical Networks\u27 (AONs) which promise an end-to-end optical transmission. This thesis will investigate various aspects of all-optical networks and prove that AONs perform better than currently existing electro-optical networks. In today\u27s\u27 electro-optical networks, routing and switching is performed in electronic domain. Performance analysis of electro-optical and all-optical networks would include node utilization, link utilization and percentage of traffic routed. It will be shown through Opnet Transport Planner simulations that AONs work better under various traffic conditions. The coming decade will see a great boom in demands on telecommunications networks. The development in bandwidth-hungry applications like real-time video transmission, telemedicine, distance learning and video on demand require both an unlimited amount of bandwidth and dependable QoS. It is well understood that electrically switched networks and copper cables will not be able to meet the future network demands effectively. The world has already agreed to move towards optical communication techniques through the introduction of fiber in access parts of the networks replacing copper. Now the race is to bring optics in higher layers of OSI reference model. Optical communication is on the horizon, and new discoveries are still underway to add to the value of available bandwidth through this technology. My research thesis will primarily focus on the design, architecture and network properties of AONs and challenges being faced by AONs in commercial deployment. Optical components required in AONs will be explored. A comparison between AONs and electro-optical networks will also be shown through optical transport planner simulations

Loss-free architectures in optical burst switched networks for a reliable and dynamic optical layer

For the last three decades, the optical fiber has been a quite systematic response to dimensioning issues in the Internet. Originally restricted to long haul networks, the optical network has gradually descended the network hierarchy to discard the bottlenecks. In the 90's, metropolitan networks became optical. Today, optical fibers are deployed in access networks and reach the users. In a near future, besides wireless access and local area networks, all networks in the network hierarchy may be made of fibers, in order to support current services (HDTV) and the emergence of new applications (3D-TV newly commercialized in USA). The deployment of such greedy applications will initiate an upward upgrade. The first step may be the Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs), not only because of the traffic growth, but also because of the variety of served applications, each with a specific traffic profile. The current optical layer is of mitigated efficiency, dealing with unforeseen events. The lack of reactivity is mainly due to the slow switching devices: any on-line decision of the optical layer is delayed by the configuration of the. devices. When the optical network has been extended in the MANs, a lot of efforts has been deployed to improve the reactivity of the optical layer. The Optical Circuit Switching paradigm (OCS) has been improved but it ultimately relies on off-line configuration of the optical devices. Optical Burst Switching (OBS) can be viewed as a highly flexible evolution of OCS, that operates five order of magnitude faster. Within this 'architecture, the loss-free guaranty can be abandoned in order to improve the reactivity of the optical layer. Indeed, reliability and reactivity appear as antagonists properties and getting closer to either of them mitigates the other. This thesis aims at proposing a solution to achieve reliable transmission over a dynamic optical layer. Focusing on OBS networks, our objective is to solve the contention issue without mitigating the reactivity. After the consideration of contention avoidance mechanisms with routing constraints similar as in OCS networks, we investigate the reactive solutions that intend to solve the contentions. None of the available contention resolution scheme can ensure the 100% efficiency that leads to loss-free transmission. An attractive solution is the recourse to electrical buffering, but it is notoriously disregarded because (1) it may highly impact the delays and (2) loss can occur due to buffer overflows. The efficiency of translucent architectures thus highly depends on the buffer availability, that can be improved by reducing the time spent in the buffers and the contention rate. We show that traffic grooming can highly reduce the emission delay, and consequently the buffer occupancy. In a first architecture, traffic grooming is enabled by a translucent core node architecture, capable to re-aggregate incoming bursts. The re-aggregation is mandatory to "de-groom" the bursts in the core network (i.e., to demultiplex the content of a burst). On the one hand, the re-aggregation highly reduces the loss probability, but on the other hand, it absorbs the benefits of traffic grooming. Finally, dynamic access to re-aggregation for contention resolution, despite the significant reduction of the contention rate, dramatically impacts the end-to-end delay and the memory requirement. We thus propose a second architecture, called CAROBS, that exploits traffic grooming in the optical domain. This framework is fully dynamic and can be used jointly with our translucent architecture that performs re-aggregation. As the (de)grooming operations do not involve re-aggregation, the translucent module can be restricted to contention resolution. As a result, the volume of data submitted to re-aggregation is drastically reduced and loss-free transmission can be reached with the same reactivity, end-to-end delay and memory requirement as a native OBS networ

Dimensionerings- en werkverdelingsalgoritmen voor lambda grids

Grids bestaan uit een verzameling reken- en opslagelementen die geografisch verspreid kunnen zijn, maar waarvan men de gezamenlijke capaciteit wenst te benutten. Daartoe dienen deze elementen verbonden te worden met een netwerk. Vermits veel wetenschappelijke applicaties gebruik maken van een Grid, en deze applicaties doorgaans grote hoeveelheden data verwerken, is het noodzakelijk om een netwerk te voorzien dat dergelijke grote datastromen op betrouwbare wijze kan transporteren. Optische transportnetwerken lenen zich hier uitstekend toe. Grids die gebruik maken van dergelijk netwerk noemt men lambda Grids. Deze thesis beschrijft een kader waarin het ontwerp en dimensionering van optische netwerken voor lambda Grids kunnen beschreven worden. Ook wordt besproken hoe werklast kan verdeeld worden op een Grid eens die gedimensioneerd is. Een groot deel van de resultaten werd bekomen door simulatie, waarbij gebruik gemaakt wordt van een eigen Grid simulatiepakket dat precies focust op netwerk- en Gridelementen. Het ontwerp van deze simulator, en de daarbijhorende implementatiekeuzes worden dan ook uitvoerig toegelicht in dit werk

Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2009, nr 1

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