An energy-efficient distributed dynamic bandwidth allocation algorithm for Passive Optical Access Networks

The rapid deployment of passive optical access networks (PONs) increases the global energy consumption of networking infrastructure. This paper focuses on the minimization of energy consumption in Ethernet PONs (EPONs). We present an energy-efficient, distributed dynamic bandwidth allocation (DBA) algorithm able to power off the transmitter and receiver of an optical network unit (ONU) when there is no upstream or downstream traffic. Our main contribution is combining the advantages of a distributed DBA (namely, a smaller packet delay compared to centralized DBAs, due to less time being needed to allocate the transmission slot) with energy saving features (that come at a price of longer delays due to the longer queue waiting times when transmitters are switched off). The proposed algorithm analyzes the queue size of the ONUs in order to switch them to doze/sleep mode when there is no upstream/downstream traffic in the network, respectively. Our results show that we minimized the ONU energy consumption across a wide range of network loads while keeping delay bounded.Postprint (published version

Fill the void: improved scheduling for optical switching

With ever-increasing demand for bandwidth, optical packet/burst switching is proposed to utilize more of the available capacity of optical networks in the future. In these packet-based switching techniques, packet contention on a single wavelength is resolved effectively by means of Fiber Delay Lines. The involved scheduling algorithms are typically designed to minimize packet loss and/or packet delay. By filling so-called voids, void-filling algorithms are known to outperform their non-void-filling counterparts. This however comes at a large computational cost as the void-filling algorithms have to keep track of beginnings and endings of all voids. This is opposed to the non-void-filling algorithms which only have to keep track of a single system state variable. We therefore propose a new type of algorithm that selectively creates voids that are larger than strictly needed, only when these will likely be filled. Results obtained by Monte Carlo simulation show that selective void creation can jointly reduce packet loss by 50% and packet delay by 18%, without imposing a high computational cost

Dynamic bandwidth allocation with SLA awareness for QoS in ethernet passive optical networks

Quality-of-service (QoS) support in Ethernet passive optical networks is a crucial concern. We propose a new dynamic bandwidth allocation (DBA) algorithm for service differentiation that meets the service-level agreements (SLAs) of the users. The proposed delay-aware (DA) online DBA algorithm provides constant and predictable average packet delay and reduced delay variation for the high-and medium-priority traffic while keeping the packet loss rate under check. We prove the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm by exhaustive simulations

Getting routers out of the core: Building an optical wide area network with "multipaths"

We propose an all-optical networking solution for a wide area network (WAN) based on the notion of multipoint-to-multipoint lightpaths that, for short, we call "multipaths". A multipath concentrates the traffic of a group of source nodes on a wavelength channel using an adapted MAC protocol and multicasts this traffic to a group of destination nodes that extract their own data from the confluent stream. The proposed network can be built using existing components and appears less complex and more efficient in terms of energy consumption than alternatives like OPS and OBS. The paper presents the multipath architecture and compares its energy consumption to that of a classical router-based ISP network. A flow-aware dynamic bandwidth allocation algorithm is proposed and shown to have excellent performance in terms of throughput and delay