Distributed Resources Assignment for Optical Burst Switching without Wavelength Conversion (Invited Paper)

The amount of bursty Internet traffic leads to develop new architectures and technologies, such as Optical Burst Switching (OBS), to efficiently satisfy future bandwidth requirements. Burst loss probability is an important quality of service metric for OBS due to its bufferless characteristic, even more critical without wavelengths converters. So, resource assignment is an important issue to solve in OBS networks. In this paper, two distributed resources assignment schemes without wavelength conversion capability are proposed. Whereas the first one is applied at the edge nodes to achieve a loss-free core network, the second is an enhanced routing and wavelength assignment scheme applied at core nodes. Simulation results indicate that the first scheme offers a loss-free solution with blocking probability only at ingress nodes and high traffic load. The second one reduces the network-wide burst loss probability significantly compared with other schemes.Postprint (published version

Architectures and protocols for sub-wavelength optical networks: contributions to connectionless and connection-oriented data transport

La ràpida evolució d’Internet i l’àmplia gamma de noves aplicacions (per exemple, multimèdia, videoconferència, jocs en línia, etc.) ha fomentat canvis revolucionaris en la manera com ens comuniquem. A més, algunes d’aquestes aplicacions demanden grans quantitats de recursos d’ample de banda amb diversos requeriments de qualitat de servei (QoS). El desenvolupament de la multiplexació per divisió de longitud d’ona (WDM) en els anys noranta va fer molt rendible la disponibilitat d’ample de banda. Avui dia, les tecnologies de commutació òptica de circuits són predominants en el nucli de la xarxa, les quals permeten la configuració de canals (lightpaths) a través de la xarxa. No obstant això, la granularitat d’aquests canals ocupa tota la longitud d’ona, el que fa que siguin ineficients per a proveir canals de menor ample de banda (sub-longitud d’ona). Segons la comunitat científica, és necessari augmentar la transparència dels protocols, així com millorar l’aprovisionament d’ample de banda de forma dinàmica. Per tal de fer això realitat, és necessari desenvolupar noves arquitectures. La commutació òptica de ràfegues i de paquets (OBS/OPS), són dues de les tecnologies proposades. Aquesta tesi contribueix amb tres arquitectures de xarxa destinades a millorar el transport de dades sub-longitud d’ona. En primer lloc, aprofundim en la naturalesa sense connexió en OBS. En aquest cas, la xarxa incrementa el seu dinamisme a causa de les transmissions a ràfega. A més, les col·lisions entre ràfegues degraden el rendiment de la xarxa fins i tot a càrregues molt baixes. Per fer front a aquestes col·lisions, es proposa un esquema de resolució de col·lisions pro actiu basat en un algorisme d’encaminament i assignació de longitud d’ona (RWA) que balanceja de forma automàtica i distribuïda la càrrega en la xarxa. En aquest protocol, el RWA i la transmissió de ràfegues es basen en l’explotació i exploració de regles de commutació que incorporen informació sobre contencions i encaminament. Per donar suport a aquesta arquitectura, s’utilitzen dos tipus de paquets de control per a l’encaminament de les ràfegues i l’actualització de les regles de commutació, respectivament. Per analitzar els beneficis del nou algorisme, s’utilitzen quatre topologies de xarxa diferents. Els resultats indiquen que el mètode proposat millora en diferents marges la resta d’algorismes RWA en funció de la topologia i sense penalitzar altres paràmetres com el retard extrem a extrem. La segona contribució proposa una arquitectura híbrida sense i orientada a connexió sobre la base d’un protocol de control d’accés al medi (MAC) per a xarxes OBS (DAOBS). El MAC ofereix dos mètodes d’accés: arbitratge de cua (QA) per a la transmissió de ràfegues sense connexió, i pre-arbitratge (PA) per serveis TDM orientats a connexió. Aquesta arquitectura permet una àmplia gamma d’aplicacions sensibles al retard i al bloqueig. Els resultats avaluats a través de simulacions mostren que en l’accés QA, les ràfegues de més alta prioritat tenen garantides zero pèrdues i latències d’accés molt baixes. Pel que fa a l’accés PA, es reporta que la duplicació de la càrrega TDM augmenta en més d’un ordre la probabilitat de bloqueig, però sense afectar en la mateixa mesura les ràfegues sense connexió. En aquest capítol també es tracten dos dels problemes relacionats amb l’arquitectura DAOBS i el seu funcionament. En primer lloc, es proposa un model matemàtic per aproximar el retard d’accés inferior i superior com a conseqüència de l’accés QA. En segon lloc, es formula matemàticament la generació i optimització de les topologies virtuals que suporten el protocol per a l’escenari amb tràfic estàtic. Finalment, l’última contribució explora els beneficis d’una arquitectura de xarxa òptica per temps compartit (TSON) basada en elements de càlcul de camins (PCE) centralitzats per tal d’evitar col·lisions en la xarxa. Aquesta arquitectura permet garantir l’aprovisionament orientat a connexió de canals sub-longitud d’ona. En aquest capítol proposem i simulem tres arquitectures GMPLS/PCE/TSON. A causa del enfocament centralitzat, el rendiment de la xarxa depèn en gran mesura de l’assignació i aprovisionament de les connexions. Amb aquesta finalitat, es proposen diferents algorismes d’assignació de ranures temporals i es comparen amb les corresponents formulacions de programació lineal (ILP) per al cas estàtic. Per al cas de tràfic dinàmic, proposem i avaluem mitjançant simulació diferents heurístiques. Els resultats mostren els beneficis de proporcionar flexibilitat en els dominis temporal i freqüencial a l’hora d’assignar les ranures temporals.The rapid evolving Internet and the broad range of new data applications (e.g., multimedia, video-conference, online gaming, etc.) is fostering revolutionary changes in the way we communicate. In addition, some of these applications demand for unprecedented amounts of bandwidth resources with diverse quality of service (QoS). The development of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) in the 90's made very cost-effective the availability of bandwidth. Nowadays, optical circuit switching technologies are predominant in the core enabling the set up of lightpaths across the network. However, full-wavelength lightpath granularity is too coarse, which results to be inefficient for provisioning sub-wavelength channels. As remarked by the research community, an open issue in optical networking is increasing the protocol transparency as well as provisioning true dynamic bandwidth allocation at the network level. To this end, new architectures are required. Optical burst/packet switching (OBS/OPS) are two such proposed technologies under investigation. This thesis contributes with three network architectures which aim at improving the sub-wavelength data transport from different perspectives. First, we gain insight into the connectionless nature of OBS. Here, the network dynamics are increased due to the short-lived burst transmissions. Moreover, burst contentions degrade the performance even at very low loads. To cope with them, we propose a proactive resolution scheme by means of a distributed auto load-balancing routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) algorithm for wavelength-continuity constraint networks. In this protocol, the RWA and burst forwarding is based on the exploitation and exploration of switching rule concentration values that incorporate contention and forwarding desirability information. To support such architecture, forward and backward control packets are used in the burst forwarding and updating rules, respectively. In order to analyze the benefits of the new algorithm, four different network topologies are used. Results indicate that the proposed method outperforms the rest of tested RWA algorithms at various margins depending on the topology without penalizing other parameters such as end-to-end delay. The second contribution proposes a hybrid connectionless and connection-oriented architecture based on a medium access control (MAC) protocol for OBS networks (DAOBS). The MAC provides two main access mechanisms: queue arbitrated (QA) for connectionless bursts and pre-arbitrated (PA) for TDM connection-oriented services. Such an architecture allows for a broad range of delay-sensitive applications or guaranteed services. Results evaluated through simulations show that in the QA access mode highest priority bursts are guaranteed zero losses and very low access latencies. Regarding the PA mode, we report that doubling the offered TDM traffic load increases in more than one order their connection blocking, slightly affecting the blocking of other connectionless bursts. In this chapter, we also tackle two of the issues related with the DAOBS architecture and its operation. Firstly, we model mathematically the lower and upper approximations of the access delay as a consequence of the connectionless queue arbitrated access. Secondly, we formulate the generation of the virtual light-tree overlay topology for the static traffic case.Postprint (published version

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

Suggested vector scheme with crankback mechanism in GMPLS-controlled optical networks

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Optical Networks and Interconnects

The rapid evolution of communication technologies such as 5G and beyond, rely on optical networks to support the challenging and ambitious requirements that include both capacity and reliability. This chapter begins by giving an overview of the evolution of optical access networks, focusing on Passive Optical Networks (PONs). The development of the different PON standards and requirements aiming at longer reach, higher client count and delivered bandwidth are presented. PON virtualization is also introduced as the flexibility enabler. Triggered by the increase of bandwidth supported by access and aggregation network segments, core networks have also evolved, as presented in the second part of the chapter. Scaling the physical infrastructure requires high investment and hence, operators are considering alternatives to optimize the use of the existing capacity. This chapter introduces different planning problems such as Routing and Spectrum Assignment problems, placement problems for regenerators and wavelength converters, and how to offer resilience to different failures. An overview of control and management is also provided. Moreover, motivated by the increasing importance of data storage and data processing, this chapter also addresses different aspects of optical data center interconnects. Data centers have become critical infrastructure to operate any service. They are also forced to take advantage of optical technology in order to keep up with the growing capacity demand and power consumption. This chapter gives an overview of different optical data center network architectures as well as some expected directions to improve the resource utilization and increase the network capacity

Dynamic bandwidth management with service differentiation over ethernet passive optical networks

Ethernet passive optical networks (EPONs) address the first mile of the communication infrastructure between the service provider central offices and the customer sites. As a low-cost, high speed technology, EPONs are deemed as the solution to the bottleneck problem of the broadband access network. A major feature of EPONs is the utility of a shared upstream channel among the end users. Only a single optical network unit (GNU) may transmit during a timeslot to avoid data collisions. In order to provide diverse quality of service (QoS), the bandwidth management of the upstream channel is essential for the successful implementation of EPONs, and thus, an efficient medium access control is required to facilitate statistical multiplexing among local traffics. This dissertation addresses the upstream bandwidth allocation over EPONs. An efficient mechanism, i.e., limited sharing with traffic prediction (LSTP), has been proposed to arbitrate the upstream bandwidth among ONUs. The MultiPoint Control Protocol (MPCP) messages, which are stipulated by the IEEE 802.3ah Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) Task Force, are adopted by LSTP to facilitate the dynamic bandwidth negotiation between an GNU and the OLT. The bandwidth requirement of an ONU includes the already enqueued frames and the predicted incoming frames during the waiting time. The OLT arbitrates the bandwidth assignment based on the queue status report from an GNU, the traffic prediction, and the agreed service contract. With respect to the performance evaluation, theoretical analysis on the frame loss, the frame delay, and the queue length has been conducted. The quantitative results demonstrate that 1) the innovative LSTP mechanism dynamically allocates the upstream bandwidth among multiple ONUs; 2) the traffic predictor at the OLT delivers satisfactory prediction for the bursty self-similar traffic, and thereby, contributing to the reduction of frame loss, frame delay, and queue length; and 3) the bandwidth arbitration at the OLT effectively restricts the aggressive bandwidth competition among ONUs by adopting the service level agreement (SLA) parameter as the upper bound. Aside from analysis, the LSTP mechanism has been substantiated by experimental simulations. In order to differentiate the service provisioning among diverse users, LSTP is further enhanced with the support of dynamic bandwidth negotiation based on multiple queues. The incoming traffics are first classified into three classes, and then enqueued into the corresponding queues. A traffic predictor is dedicated to one class of traffic from an GNU. Service differentiation among classes are provided by the combination of queuing and scheduling at the GNU side. At the OLT side, the bandwidth allocation for each class of traffic is based on the reported queue status and the traffic prediction, and is upper-bounded by the SLA parameter. Experimental simulations have justified the feasibility of providing service differentiation over the broadband EPONs

Multicast Routing In Optical Access Networks

Widely available broadband services in the Internet require high capacity access networks. Only optical networking is able to efficiently provide the huge bandwidth required by multimedia applications. Distributed applications such as Video-Conferencing, HDTV, VOD and Distance Learning are increasingly common and produce a large amount of data traffic, typically between several terminals. Multicast is a bandwidth-efficient technique for one-to-many or many-to-many communications, and will be indispensable for serving multimedia applications in future optical access networks. These applications require robust and reliable connections as well as the satisfaction of QoS criteria. In this chapter, several access network architectures and related multicast routing methods are analyzed. Overall network performance and dependability are the focus of our analysis