Towards Scalable Cost-Effective Service and Survivability Provisioning in Ultra High Speed Networks

Optical transport networks based on wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) are considered to be the most appropriate choice for future Internet backbone. On the other hand, future DOE networks are expected to have the ability to dynamically provision on-demand survivable services to suit the needs of various high performance scientific applications and remote collaboration. Since a failure in aWDMnetwork such as a cable cut may result in a tremendous amount of data loss, efficient protection of data transport in WDM networks is therefore essential. As the backbone network is moving towards GMPLS/WDM optical networks, the unique requirement to support DOE’s science mission results in challenging issues that are not directly addressed by existing networking techniques and methodologies. The objectives of this project were to develop cost effective protection and restoration mechanisms based on dedicated path, shared path, preconfigured cycle (p-cycle), and so on, to deal with single failure, dual failure, and shared risk link group (SRLG) failure, under different traffic and resource requirement models; to devise efficient service provisioning algorithms that deal with application specific network resource requirements for both unicast and multicast; to study various aspects of traffic grooming in WDM ring and mesh networks to derive cost effective solutions while meeting application resource and QoS requirements; to design various diverse routing and multi-constrained routing algorithms, considering different traffic models and failure models, for protection and restoration, as well as for service provisioning; to propose and study new optical burst switched architectures and mechanisms for effectively supporting dynamic services; and to integrate research with graduate and undergraduate education. All objectives have been successfully met. This report summarizes the major accomplishments of this project. The impact of the project manifests in many aspects: First, the project addressed many essential problems that arisen in current and future WDM optical networks, and provided a host of innovative solutions though there was no invention or patent filing. This project resulted in more than 2 dozens publications in major journals and conferences (including papers in IEEE Transactions and journals, as well as a book chapter). Our publications have been cited by many peer researchers. In particular, one of our conference papers was nominated for the best paper award of IEEE/Create-Net Broadnets (International Conference on Broadband Communications, Networks, and Systems) 2006. Second, the results and solutions of this project were well received by DOE Labs where presentations were given by the PI. We hope to continue the collaboration with DOE Labs in the future. Third, the project was the first to propose and extensively study multicast traffic grooming, new traffic models such as sliding scheduled traffic model and scheduled traffic model. Our research has sparkled a flurry of recent studies and publications by the research community in these areas. Fourth, the project has benefited a diverse population of students by motivating, engaging, enhancing their learning and skills. The project has been conducted in a manner conducive to the training of students both at graduate and undergraduate levels. As a result, one Ph.D., Dr. Abdur Billah, was graduated. Another Ph.D. student, Tianjian Li, will graduate in January 2007. In addition, four MS students were graduated. One undergraduate student, Jeffrey Alan Shininger, completed his university honors project. Fifth, thanks to the support of this ECPI project, the PI has obtained additional funding from the National Science Foundation, the Air Force Research Lab, and other sources. A few other proposals are pending. Finally, this project has also significantly impacted the curricula and resulted in the enhancement of courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels, therefore strengthening the bond between research and education

Multicast protection and energy efficient traffic grooming in optical wavelength routing networks.

Zhang, Shuqiang.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010.Includes bibliographical references (p. 74-80).Abstracts in English and Chinese.Abstract --- p.i摘要 --- p.ivAcknowledgements --- p.vTable of Contents --- p.viChapter Chapter 1 --- Background --- p.1Chapter 1.1 --- Routing and Wavelength Assignment --- p.1Chapter 1.2 --- Survivability in Optical Networks --- p.3Chapter 1.3 --- Optical Multicasting --- p.4Chapter 1.3.1 --- Routing and Wavelength Assignment of Optical Multicast --- p.5Chapter 1.3.2 --- Current Research Topics about Optical Multicast --- p.8Chapter 1.4 --- Traffic Grooming --- p.10Chapter 1.4.1 --- Static Traffic Grooming --- p.11Chapter 1.4.2 --- Dynamic Traffic Grooming --- p.13Chapter 1.5 --- Contributions --- p.15Chapter 1.5.1 --- Multicast Protection with Scheduled Traffic Model --- p.15Chapter 1.5.2 --- Energy Efficient Time-Aware Traffic Grooming --- p.16Chapter 1.6 --- Organization of Thesis --- p.18Chapter Chapter 2 --- Multicast Protection in WDM Optical Network with Scheduled Traffic --- p.19Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.19Chapter 2.2 --- Multicast Protection under FSTM --- p.22Chapter 2.3 --- Illustrative Examples --- p.28Chapter 2.4 --- Two-Step Optimization under SSTM --- p.37Chapter 2.5 --- Summary --- p.40Chapter Chapter 3 --- Energy Efficient Time-Aware Traffic Grooming in Wavelength Routing Networks --- p.41Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.41Chapter 3.2 --- Energy consumption model --- p.43Chapter 3.3 --- Static Traffic Grooming with Time awareness --- p.44Chapter 3.3.1 --- Scheduled Traffic Model for Traffic Grooming --- p.44Chapter 3.3.2 --- ILP Formulation --- p.44Chapter 3.3.3 --- Illustrative Numerical Example --- p.48Chapter 3.4 --- Dynamic Traffic Grooming with Time Awareness --- p.49Chapter 3.4.1 --- Time-Aware Traffic Grooming (TATG) --- p.51Chapter 3.5 --- Simulation Results of Dynamic Traffic Grooming --- p.54Chapter 3.5.1 --- 24-node USNET: --- p.55Chapter 3.5.2 --- 15-node Pacific Bell Network: --- p.59Chapter 3.5.3 --- 14-node NSFNET: --- p.63Chapter 3.5.4 --- Alternative Configuration of Simulation Parameters: --- p.67Chapter 3.6 --- Summary --- p.71Chapter Chapter 4 --- Conclusions and Future Work --- p.72Chapter 4.1 --- Conclusions --- p.72Chapter 4.2 --- Future Work --- p.73Bibliography --- p.74Publications during M.Phil Study --- p.8

Resilient optical multicasting utilizing cycles in WDM optical networks

High capacity telecommunications of today is possible only because of the presence of optical networks. At the heart of an optical network is an optical fiber whose data carrying capabilities are unparalleled. Multicasting is a form of communication in wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) networks that involves one source and multiple destinations. Light trees, which employ light splitting at various nodes, are used to deliver data to multiple destinations. A fiber cut has been estimated to occur, on an average, once every four days by TEN, a pan-European carrier network. This thesis presents algorithms to make multicast sessions survivable against component failures. We consider multiple link failures and node failures in this work. The two algorithms presented in this thesis use a hybrid approach which is a combination of proactive and reactive approaches to recover from failures. We introduce the novel concept of minimal-hop cycles to tolerate simultaneous multiple link failures in a multicast session. While the first algorithm deals only with multiple link failures, the second algorithm considers the case of node failure and a link failure. Two different versions of the first algorithm have been implemented to thoroughly understand its behavior. Both algorithms were studied through simulators on two different networks, the USA Longhaul network and the NSF network. The input multicast sessions to all our algorithms were generated from power efficient multicast algorithms that make sure the power in the receiving nodes are at acceptable levels. The parameters used to evaluate the performance of our algorithms include computation times, network usage and power efficiency. Two new parameters, namely, recovery times and recovery success probability, have been introduced in this work. To our knowledge, this work is the first to introduce the concept of minimal hop cycles to recover from simultaneous multiple link failures in a multicast session in optical networks

Mécanismes d'allocation de ressources et fiabilité dans les réseaux coeur de prochaines générations

Définitions et concepts de bases -- Éléments de problématique -- Objectifs de recherche -- Principales contributions -- Revue de littérature -- Modèles de services -- Routage avec Qualité de Service -- Ingénierie de traffic -- Contrôle d'admission avec Qualité de Service -- Fiabilité des réseaux -- A novel admission control mechanism in GMPLS- BASED IP over optical networks -- Problem statement -- Numerical results -- Joint routing and admission control problem under statistical delay and jitter constraints in MPLS networks -- Simulation results -- A survivable multicast routing mechanism in WDM optical networks -- Survivable routing under SRLG constraints -- GR-SMRS : Greedy heuristic for survivable multicast routing under SRLG constraints -- simulation results

Robustness to failures in two-layer communication networks

A close look at many existing systems reveals their two- or multi-layer nature, where a number of coexisting networks interact and depend on each other. For instance, in the Internet, any application-level graph (such as a peer-to-peer network) is mapped on the underlying IP network that, in turn, is mapped on a mesh of optical fibers. This layered view sheds new light on the tolerance to errors and attacks of many complex systems. What is observed at a single layer does not necessarily reflect well the state of the entire system. On the contrary, a tiny, seemingly harmless disruption of one layer, may destroy a substantial or essential part of another layer, thus making the whole system useless in practice. In this thesis we consider such two-layer systems. We model them by two graphs at two different layers, where the upper-layer (or logical) graph is mapped onto the lower-layer (physical) graph. Our main goals are the following. First, we study the robustness to failures of existing large-scale two-layer systems. This brings us some valuable insights into the problem, e.g., by identifying common weak points in such systems. Fortunately, these two-layer problems can often be effectively alleviated by a careful system design. Therefore, our second major goal is to propose new designs that increase the robustness of two-layer systems. This thesis is organized in three main parts, where we focus on different examples and aspects of the two-layer system. In the first part, we turn our attention to the existing large-scale two-layer systems, such as peer-to-peer networks, railway networks and the human brain. Our main goal is to study the vulnerability of these systems to random errors and targeted attacks. Our simulations show that (i) two-layer systems are much more vulnerable to errors and attacks than they appear from a single layer perspective, and (ii) attacks are much more harmful than errors, especially when the logical topology is heterogeneous. These results hold across all studied systems. A natural next step consists in improving the failure robustness of two-layer systems. In particular, in the second part of this thesis, we consider the IP/WDM optical networks, where an IP backbone network is mapped on a mesh of optical fibers. The problem lies in designing a survivable mapping, such that no single physical failure disconnects the logical topology. This is an NP-complete problem. We introduce a new concept of piecewise survivability, which makes the problem much easier in practice. This leads us to an efficient and scalable algorithm called SMART, which finds a survivable mapping much faster (often by orders of magnitude) than the other approaches proposed to date. Moreover, the formal analysis of SMART allows us to prove that a given survivable mapping does or does not exist. Finally, this approach helps us to find vulnerable areas in the system, and to effectively reinforce them, e.g., by adding new links. In the third part of this thesis, we shift our attention one layer higher, to the application-over-IP setting. In particular, we consider the design of Application-Level Multicast (ALM) for interactive applications, where a single source sends a delay-constrained data stream to a number of destinations. Interactive ALM should (i) respect stringent delay requirements, and (ii) proactively protect the system against overlay node failures and against (iii) the packet losses at the IP layer. We propose a two-layer-aware approach to this problem. First, we prove that the average packet loss rate observed at the destinations can be effectively approximated by a purely topological metric that, in turn, drops with the amount of IP-level and overlay-level path diversity available in the system. Therefore, we propose a framework that accommodates and generalizes various techniques to increase the path diversity in the system. Within this framework we optimize the structure of ALM. As a result, we reduce the effective loss rate of real Internet topologies by typically 30%-70%, compared to the state of the art. Finally, in addition to the three main parts of the thesis, we also present a set of results inspired by the study of ALM systems, but not directly related to the 'two-layer' paradigm (and thus moved to the Appendix). In particular, we consider a transmission of a delay-sensitive data stream from a single source to a single destination, where the data packets are protected by a Forward Error Correction (FEC) code and sent over multiple paths. We show that the performance of such a scheme can often be further improved. Our key observation is that the propagation times on the available paths often significantly differ, typically by 10-100ms. We propose to exploit these differences by appropriate packet scheduling, which results in a two- to five-fold improvement (reduction) in the effective loss rate

Survivable multicasting in WDM optical networks

Opportunities abound in the global content delivery service market and it is here that multicasting is proving to be a powerful feature. In WDM networks, optical splitting is widely used to achieve multicasting. It removes the complications of optical-electronic-optical conversions [1]. Several multicasting algorithms have been proposed in the literature for building light trees. As the amount of fiber deployment increases in networks, the risk of losing large volumes of data traffic due to a fiber span cut or due to node failure also increases. In this thesis we propose heuristic schemes to make the primary multicast trees resilient to network impairments. We consider single link failures only, as they are the most common cause of service disruptions. Thus our heuristics make the primary multicast session survivable against single link failures by offering alternate multicast trees. We propose three algorithms for recovering from the failures with proactive methodologies and two algorithms for recovering from failures by reactive methodologies. We introduce the new and novel concept of critical subtree. Through our new approach the proactive and reactive approaches can be amalgamated together using a criticality threshold to provide recovery to the primary multicast tree. By varying the criticality threshold we can control the amount of protection and reaction that will be used for recovery. The performance of these five algorithms is studied in combinations and in standalone modes. The input multicast trees to all of these recovery heuristics come from a previous work on designing power efficient multicast algorithms for WDM optical networks [1]. Measurement of the power levels at receiving nodes is indeed indicative of the power efficiency of these recovery algorithms. Other parameters that are considered for the evaluation of the algorithms are network usage efficiency, (number of links used by the backup paths) and the computation time for calculating these backup paths. This work is the first to propose metrics for evaluating recovery algorithms for multicasting in WDM optical networks. It is also the first to introduce the concept of hybrid proactive and reactive approach and to propose a simple technique for achieving the proper mix

An information-theoretic view of network management

We present an information-theoretic framework for network management for recovery from nonergodic link failures. Building on recent work in the field of network coding, we describe the input-output relations of network nodes in terms of network codes. This very general concept of network behavior as a code provides a way to quantify essential management information as that needed to switch among different codes (behaviors) for different failure scenarios. We compare two types of recovery schemes, receiver-based and network-wide, and consider two formulations for quantifying network management. The first is a centralized formulation where network behavior is described by an overall code determining the behavior of every node, and the management requirement is taken as the logarithm of the number of such codes that the network may switch among. For this formulation, we give bounds, many of which are tight, on management requirements for various network connection problems in terms of basic parameters such as the number of source processes and the number of links in a minimum source-receiver cut. Our results include a lower bound for arbitrary connections and an upper bound for multitransmitter multicast connections, for linear receiver-based and network-wide recovery from all single link failures. The second is a node-based formulation where the management requirement is taken as the sum over all nodes of the logarithm of the number of different behaviors for each node. We show that the minimum node-based requirement for failures of links adjacent to a single receiver is achieved with receiver-based schemes

Design and protection algorithms for path level aggregation of traffic in WDM metro optical networks

Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) promises to offer a cost effective and scalable solution to meet the emerging demands of the Internet. WDM splits the tremendous bandwidth latent in a fiber into multiple non-overlapping wavelength channels, each of which can be operated at the peak electronic rate. Commercial systems with 128 wavelengths and transmission rates of up to 40 Gbps per wavelength have been made possible using state of the art optical technologies to deal with physical impairments. Systems with higher capacities are likely to evolve in the future. The end user requirements for bandwidth, on the other hand, have been ranging from 155 Mbps to 2.5 Gbps. Dedicating a wavelength for each end user will lead to severe underutilization of WDM channels. This brings to forefront the requirement for sharing of bandwidth in a wavelength among multiple end users.;The concept of wavelength sharing among multiple clients is called grooming. Grooming can be done purely at the optical layer (optical grooming) or it can be done with support from the client layer (electronic grooming). The advantage of all optical grooming is the ease of scalability due to its transparency as opposed to electronic grooming which is constrained by electronic bottlenecks. Efforts towards enhancing optical grooming is pursued through increasing optical switching speeds. However, technologies to make optical switches with high speeds, large port counts and low insertion losses have been elusive and may continue to remain so in the near future.;Recently, there have been some research into designing new architectures and protocols focused on optical grooming without resorting to fast optical switching. Typically, this is achieved in three steps: (1) configure the circuit in the form of a path or a tree; (2) use optical devices like couplers or splitters to allow multiple transmitters and/or receivers to share the same circuit; and (3) provide an arbitration mechanism to avoid contention among end users of the circuit. This transparent sharing of the wavelength channel utilizes the network resources better than the conventional low-speed circuit switched approaches. Consequently, it becomes important to quantify the improvement in achieved performance and evaluate if the reaped benefits justify the cost of the required additional hardware and software.;The contribution of this thesis is two fold: (1) developing a new architecture called light-trails as an IP based solution for next generation WDM optical networks, and (2) designing a unified framework to model Path Level Aggregation of Traffic in metrO Optical Networks (PLATOONs). The algorithms suggested here have three features: (1) accounts for four different path level aggregation strategies---namely, point to point (for example, lightpaths), point to multi-point (for example, source based light-trails), multi-point to point (for example, destination based light-trails) and multi-point to multi-point (for example, light-trails); (2) incorporates heterogenous switching architectures; and (3) accommodates multi-rate traffic. Algorithms for network design and survivability are developed for PLATOONs in the presence of both static and dynamic traffic. Connection level dedicated/shared, segregated/mixed protection schemes are formulated for single link failures in the presence of static and dynamic traffic. A simple medium access control protocol that avoids collisions when the channel is shared by multiple clients is also proposed.;Based on extensive simulations, we conclude that, for the studied scenarios, (1) when client layer has no electronic grooming capabilities, light-trails (employing multi-point to multi-point aggregation strategy) perform several orders of magnitude better than lightpaths and (2) when client layer has full electronic grooming capabilities, source based light-trails (employing point to multi-point aggregation strategy) perform the best in wavelength limited scenarios and lightpaths perform the best in transceiver limited scenarios.;The algorithms that are developed here will be helpful in designing optical networks that deploy path level aggregation strategies. The proposed ideas will impact the design of transparent, high-speed all-optical networks.</p