An Overview on Application of Machine Learning Techniques in Optical Networks

Today's telecommunication networks have become sources of enormous amounts of widely heterogeneous data. This information can be retrieved from network traffic traces, network alarms, signal quality indicators, users' behavioral data, etc. Advanced mathematical tools are required to extract meaningful information from these data and take decisions pertaining to the proper functioning of the networks from the network-generated data. Among these mathematical tools, Machine Learning (ML) is regarded as one of the most promising methodological approaches to perform network-data analysis and enable automated network self-configuration and fault management. The adoption of ML techniques in the field of optical communication networks is motivated by the unprecedented growth of network complexity faced by optical networks in the last few years. Such complexity increase is due to the introduction of a huge number of adjustable and interdependent system parameters (e.g., routing configurations, modulation format, symbol rate, coding schemes, etc.) that are enabled by the usage of coherent transmission/reception technologies, advanced digital signal processing and compensation of nonlinear effects in optical fiber propagation. In this paper we provide an overview of the application of ML to optical communications and networking. We classify and survey relevant literature dealing with the topic, and we also provide an introductory tutorial on ML for researchers and practitioners interested in this field. Although a good number of research papers have recently appeared, the application of ML to optical networks is still in its infancy: to stimulate further work in this area, we conclude the paper proposing new possible research directions

Software Defined Applications in Cellular and Optical Networks

abstract: Small wireless cells have the potential to overcome bottlenecks in wireless access through the sharing of spectrum resources. A novel access backhaul network architecture based on a Smart Gateway (Sm-GW) between the small cell base stations, e.g., LTE eNBs, and the conventional backhaul gateways, e.g., LTE Servicing/Packet Gateways (S/P-GWs) has been introduced to address the bottleneck. The Sm-GW flexibly schedules uplink transmissions for the eNBs. Based on software defined networking (SDN) a management mechanism that allows multiple operator to flexibly inter-operate via multiple Sm-GWs with a multitude of small cells has been proposed. This dissertation also comprehensively survey the studies that examine the SDN paradigm in optical networks. Along with the PHY functional split improvements, the performance of Distributed Converged Cable Access Platform (DCCAP) in the cable architectures especially for the Remote-PHY and Remote-MACPHY nodes has been evaluated. In the PHY functional split, in addition to the re-use of infrastructure with a common FFT module for multiple technologies, a novel cross functional split interaction to cache the repetitive QAM symbols across time at the remote node to reduce the transmission rate requirement of the fronthaul link has been proposed.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 201

Roadmap of optical communications

© 2016 IOP Publishing Ltd. Lightwave communications is a necessity for the information age. Optical links provide enormous bandwidth, and the optical fiber is the only medium that can meet the modern society's needs for transporting massive amounts of data over long distances. Applications range from global high-capacity networks, which constitute the backbone of the internet, to the massively parallel interconnects that provide data connectivity inside datacenters and supercomputers. Optical communications is a diverse and rapidly changing field, where experts in photonics, communications, electronics, and signal processing work side by side to meet the ever-increasing demands for higher capacity, lower cost, and lower energy consumption, while adapting the system design to novel services and technologies. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of this rich research field, Journal of Optics has invited 16 researchers, each a world-leading expert in their respective subfields, to contribute a section to this invited review article, summarizing their views on state-of-the-art and future developments in optical communications

Next generation control of transport networks

It is widely understood by telecom operators and industry analysts that bandwidth demand is increasing dramatically, year on year, with typical growth figures of 50% for Internet-based traffic [5]. This trend means that the consumers will have both a wide variety of devices attaching to their networks and a range of high bandwidth service requirements. The corresponding impact is the effect on the traffic engineered network (often referred to as the “transport network”) to ensure that the current rate of growth of network traffic is supported and meets predicted future demands. As traffic demands increase and newer services continuously arise, novel network elements are needed to provide more flexibility, scalability, resilience, and adaptability to today’s transport network. The transport network provides transparent traffic engineered communication of user, application, and device traffic between attached clients (software and hardware) and establishing and maintaining point-to-point or point-to-multipoint connections. The research documented in this thesis was based on three initial research questions posed while performing research at British Telecom research labs and investigating control of transport networks of future transport networks: 1. How can we meet Internet bandwidth growth yet minimise network costs? 2. Which enabling network technologies might be leveraged to control network layers and functions cooperatively, instead of separated network layer and technology control? 3. Is it possible to utilise both centralised and distributed control mechanisms for automation and traffic optimisation? This thesis aims to provide the classification, motivation, invention, and evolution of a next generation control framework for transport networks, and special consideration of delivering broadcast video traffic to UK subscribers. The document outlines pertinent telecoms technology and current art, how requirements I gathered, and research I conducted, and by which the transport control framework functional components are identified and selected, and by which method the architecture was implemented and applied to key research projects requiring next generation control capabilities, both at British Telecom and the wider research community. Finally, in the closing chapters, the thesis outlines the next steps for ongoing research and development of the transport network framework and key areas for further study

Contributions towards softwarization and energy saving in passive optical networks

Ths thesis is a result of contributions to optimize and improve the network management systme and power consumption in Passive Optical Network (PON). Passive Optical Network elements such as Optical Line Terminal (OLT) and Optical Network Units (ONUs) are currently managed by inflexible legacy network management systems. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is a new networking paradigm that improves the operation and management of networks by decoupling control plane from data plane. Currently, network management in PON networks is not always automated nor normalized. One goal of the researchers in optical networking is to improve the programmability, efficiency, and global optimization of network operations, in order to minimize both Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) and Operational Expenditure (OPEX) by reducing the complexity of devices and its operation. Therefore, it makes sense to use an SDN approach in order to manage the passive optical network functionalities and migrating must of the upper layer functions to the SDN controller. Many approaches have already addressed the topic of applying the SDN architecture in PON networks. However; the focus was usually on facilitating the deployment of SDN-based service and so Service Interoperability remains unexplored in detail. The main challenge toward this goal is how to make compatible the synchronous nature of the EPON media access control protocols with the asynchronous architecture of SDN, and in particular, OpenFlow. In our proposed architecture, the OLT is partially virtualized and some of its functionalities are allocated to the core network management system, while the OLT itself is replaced by an OpenFlow switch. A new MultiPoint MAC Control (MPMC) sublayer extension based on the OpenFlow protocol is presented. The OpenFlow switch is extended with synchronous ports to retain the time-critical nature of the EPON network. Our simulation-based results demonstrate the effectiveness of the new architecture, while retaining a similar (or improved) performance in term of delay and throughput when compared to legacy PONs. Nowadays, many researchers are working simultaneously to develop power saving techniques and improves energy efficiency in the PON network, and since the contribution of access networks to the global energy consumption is large, energy efficiency has become an increasingly important requirement in designing access networks. Therefore, energy-saving approaches are being investigated to provide high performance and consume less energy. Several techniques have been proposed to increase energy efficiency in PON networks. Such techniques are related to the centeralized DBA but the advantage of power saving in a distributed DBA remains untouched. We present a distributed energy-efficient Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation (DBA) algorithm for both the upstream and downstream channels of EPON to improve energy efficiency in EPON networks. The proposed algorithm analyzes the queue status of the ONUs and OLT in order to power-off the transmitter and/or receiver of an ONU whenever there is no upstream or downstream traffic. We have been able to combine the advantage of a distributed DBA such as DDSPON (a smaller packet delay, due to the shorter time needed by DDSPON to allocate the transmission slots) and the energy-saving features (that come at a price of longer packet delays due to the fact that switching off the transmitters make the packet queues grow). Our proposed DBA algorithm minimizes the ONU energy consumption across a wide range of network loads, while maintaining at an acceptable level the penalty introduced in terms of channel utilization and packet delay.Las contribuciones de esta tesis se centran en mejorar el sistema de gestión de red y el consumo de energía en redes de acceso ópticas pasivas (PON). Los elementos de las redes PON, como el terminal de línea óptica (OLT) y las unidades de red ópticas (ONU), se gestionan actualmente mediante sistemas poco flexibles. El nuevo paradigma de redes definidas por software (SDN) mejora la gestión de redes al desacoplar el plano de control del plano de datos. Actualmente, la gestión de redes PON no está automatizada ni normalizada. Uno de los objetivos de los investigadores en redes ópticas es mejorar la programabilidad, la eficiencia y la optimización global de las operaciones de red, con el fin de minimizar tanto el gasto de capital (CAPEX) como el gasto operativo (OPEX) al reducir la complejidad de los dispositivos y su funcionamiento. Por lo tanto, tiene sentido utilizar un enfoque SDN para gestionar las funciones de red óptica pasiva y migrar algunas de las funciones PON de capas superiores al controlador SDN. Otros investigadores han estudiado esta aproximación. sin embargo; el enfoque generalmente estaba en facilitar la implementación del servicio basado en SDN y, por lo tanto, la interoperabilidad de los servicios permanecía sin ser explorado en detalle. El principal desafío hacia este objetivo es cómo compatibilizar la naturaleza síncrona de los protocolos de control de acceso a medios EPON con la arquitectura asíncrona de SDN y, en particular, OpenFlow. En nuestra propuesta de arquitectura, la OLT se virtualiza parcialmente y algunas de sus funcionalidades se asignan al sistema de gestión de red centralizado, mientras que la OLT se reemplaza por un conmutador OpenFlow. Proponemos una nueva extensión de la subcapa de control múltiple de MAC (MPMC) basada en el protocolo OpenFlow. El conmutador OpenFlow se amplía con puertos síncronos para asegurar la naturaleza de tiempo real de la red EPON. Nuestros resultados basados ¿¿en simulaciones demuestran la efectividad de la nueva arquitectura, al tiempo que se mantiene un rendimiento similar (o mejorado) en términos de retardos y rendimiento en comparación con las PON clásicas. Por otro lado, se están desarrollando técnicas de ahorro de energía y mejora de la eficiencia energética en redes PON, y dado que la contribución de las redes de acceso al consumo total de energía es importante, la eficiencia energética se ha convertido en un requisito cada vez más importante. Se han propuesto varias técnicas por parte de otros autores para aumentar la eficiencia energética en las redes PON, relacionadas con algoritmos DBA (Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation) centralizados, pero las ventaja del ahorro de energía en un DBA distribuido no se ha explorado todavía. Por ello nuestra segunda contiribución es un algoritmo distribuido de asignación dinámica de ancho de banda energéticamente eficiente tanto para los canales ascendentes como descendentes de EPON para mejorar la eficiencia energética en las redes EPON. El algoritmo propuesto analiza el estado de cola de las ONU y la OLT para apagar el transmisor y/o el receptor de una ONU cuando no hay tráfico en sentido ascendente o descendente. Hemos podido combinar la ventaja de un DBA distribuido como DDSPON (que asegura retardos más pequeños, debido al menor tiempo que DDSPON necesita para asignar las ranuras de transmisión) y las características de ahorro de energía (al precio de tener retardos de paquete más grandes debido al hecho de que apagar los transmisores hace que las colas de paquetes crezcan). Nuestro algoritmo de DBA propuesto minimiza el consumo de energía de la ONU en una amplia gama de cargas de red, mientras mantiene a un nivel aceptable la penalización introducida en términos de utilización del canal y retardos.Postprint (published version

Contributions towards softwarization and energy saving in passive optical networks

Ths thesis is a result of contributions to optimize and improve the network management systme and power consumption in Passive Optical Network (PON). Passive Optical Network elements such as Optical Line Terminal (OLT) and Optical Network Units (ONUs) are currently managed by inflexible legacy network management systems. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is a new networking paradigm that improves the operation and management of networks by decoupling control plane from data plane. Currently, network management in PON networks is not always automated nor normalized. One goal of the researchers in optical networking is to improve the programmability, efficiency, and global optimization of network operations, in order to minimize both Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) and Operational Expenditure (OPEX) by reducing the complexity of devices and its operation. Therefore, it makes sense to use an SDN approach in order to manage the passive optical network functionalities and migrating must of the upper layer functions to the SDN controller. Many approaches have already addressed the topic of applying the SDN architecture in PON networks. However; the focus was usually on facilitating the deployment of SDN-based service and so Service Interoperability remains unexplored in detail. The main challenge toward this goal is how to make compatible the synchronous nature of the EPON media access control protocols with the asynchronous architecture of SDN, and in particular, OpenFlow. In our proposed architecture, the OLT is partially virtualized and some of its functionalities are allocated to the core network management system, while the OLT itself is replaced by an OpenFlow switch. A new MultiPoint MAC Control (MPMC) sublayer extension based on the OpenFlow protocol is presented. The OpenFlow switch is extended with synchronous ports to retain the time-critical nature of the EPON network. Our simulation-based results demonstrate the effectiveness of the new architecture, while retaining a similar (or improved) performance in term of delay and throughput when compared to legacy PONs. Nowadays, many researchers are working simultaneously to develop power saving techniques and improves energy efficiency in the PON network, and since the contribution of access networks to the global energy consumption is large, energy efficiency has become an increasingly important requirement in designing access networks. Therefore, energy-saving approaches are being investigated to provide high performance and consume less energy. Several techniques have been proposed to increase energy efficiency in PON networks. Such techniques are related to the centeralized DBA but the advantage of power saving in a distributed DBA remains untouched. We present a distributed energy-efficient Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation (DBA) algorithm for both the upstream and downstream channels of EPON to improve energy efficiency in EPON networks. The proposed algorithm analyzes the queue status of the ONUs and OLT in order to power-off the transmitter and/or receiver of an ONU whenever there is no upstream or downstream traffic. We have been able to combine the advantage of a distributed DBA such as DDSPON (a smaller packet delay, due to the shorter time needed by DDSPON to allocate the transmission slots) and the energy-saving features (that come at a price of longer packet delays due to the fact that switching off the transmitters make the packet queues grow). Our proposed DBA algorithm minimizes the ONU energy consumption across a wide range of network loads, while maintaining at an acceptable level the penalty introduced in terms of channel utilization and packet delay.Las contribuciones de esta tesis se centran en mejorar el sistema de gestión de red y el consumo de energía en redes de acceso ópticas pasivas (PON). Los elementos de las redes PON, como el terminal de línea óptica (OLT) y las unidades de red ópticas (ONU), se gestionan actualmente mediante sistemas poco flexibles. El nuevo paradigma de redes definidas por software (SDN) mejora la gestión de redes al desacoplar el plano de control del plano de datos. Actualmente, la gestión de redes PON no está automatizada ni normalizada. Uno de los objetivos de los investigadores en redes ópticas es mejorar la programabilidad, la eficiencia y la optimización global de las operaciones de red, con el fin de minimizar tanto el gasto de capital (CAPEX) como el gasto operativo (OPEX) al reducir la complejidad de los dispositivos y su funcionamiento. Por lo tanto, tiene sentido utilizar un enfoque SDN para gestionar las funciones de red óptica pasiva y migrar algunas de las funciones PON de capas superiores al controlador SDN. Otros investigadores han estudiado esta aproximación. sin embargo; el enfoque generalmente estaba en facilitar la implementación del servicio basado en SDN y, por lo tanto, la interoperabilidad de los servicios permanecía sin ser explorado en detalle. El principal desafío hacia este objetivo es cómo compatibilizar la naturaleza síncrona de los protocolos de control de acceso a medios EPON con la arquitectura asíncrona de SDN y, en particular, OpenFlow. En nuestra propuesta de arquitectura, la OLT se virtualiza parcialmente y algunas de sus funcionalidades se asignan al sistema de gestión de red centralizado, mientras que la OLT se reemplaza por un conmutador OpenFlow. Proponemos una nueva extensión de la subcapa de control múltiple de MAC (MPMC) basada en el protocolo OpenFlow. El conmutador OpenFlow se amplía con puertos síncronos para asegurar la naturaleza de tiempo real de la red EPON. Nuestros resultados basados ¿¿en simulaciones demuestran la efectividad de la nueva arquitectura, al tiempo que se mantiene un rendimiento similar (o mejorado) en términos de retardos y rendimiento en comparación con las PON clásicas. Por otro lado, se están desarrollando técnicas de ahorro de energía y mejora de la eficiencia energética en redes PON, y dado que la contribución de las redes de acceso al consumo total de energía es importante, la eficiencia energética se ha convertido en un requisito cada vez más importante. Se han propuesto varias técnicas por parte de otros autores para aumentar la eficiencia energética en las redes PON, relacionadas con algoritmos DBA (Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation) centralizados, pero las ventaja del ahorro de energía en un DBA distribuido no se ha explorado todavía. Por ello nuestra segunda contiribución es un algoritmo distribuido de asignación dinámica de ancho de banda energéticamente eficiente tanto para los canales ascendentes como descendentes de EPON para mejorar la eficiencia energética en las redes EPON. El algoritmo propuesto analiza el estado de cola de las ONU y la OLT para apagar el transmisor y/o el receptor de una ONU cuando no hay tráfico en sentido ascendente o descendente. Hemos podido combinar la ventaja de un DBA distribuido como DDSPON (que asegura retardos más pequeños, debido al menor tiempo que DDSPON necesita para asignar las ranuras de transmisión) y las características de ahorro de energía (al precio de tener retardos de paquete más grandes debido al hecho de que apagar los transmisores hace que las colas de paquetes crezcan). Nuestro algoritmo de DBA propuesto minimiza el consumo de energía de la ONU en una amplia gama de cargas de red, mientras mantiene a un nivel aceptable la penalización introducida en términos de utilización del canal y retardos

An Overview on Application of Machine Learning Techniques in Optical Networks

Today's telecommunication networks have become sources of enormous amounts of widely heterogeneous data. This information can be retrieved from network traffic traces, network alarms, signal quality indicators, users' behavioral data, etc. Advanced mathematical tools are required to extract meaningful information from these data and take decisions pertaining to the proper functioning of the networks from the network-generated data. Among these mathematical tools, machine learning (ML) is regarded as one of the most promising methodological approaches to perform network-data analysis and enable automated network self-configuration and fault management. The adoption of ML techniques in the field of optical communication networks is motivated by the unprecedented growth of network complexity faced by optical networks in the last few years. Such complexity increase is due to the introduction of a huge number of adjustable and interdependent system parameters (e.g., routing configurations, modulation format, symbol rate, coding schemes, etc.) that are enabled by the usage of coherent transmission/reception technologies, advanced digital signal processing, and compensation of nonlinear effects in optical fiber propagation. In this paper we provide an overview of the application of ML to optical communications and networking. We classify and survey relevant literature dealing with the topic, and we also provide an introductory tutorial on ML for researchers and practitioners interested in this field. Although a good number of research papers have recently appeared, the application of ML to optical networks is still in its infancy: to stimulate further work in this area, we conclude this paper proposing new possible research directions

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