Exploiting AWG Free Spectral Range Periodicity in Distributed Multicast Architectures

Modular optical switch architectures combining wavelength routing based on arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) devices and multicasting based on star couplers hold promise for flexibly addressing the exponentially growing traffic demands in a cost- and power-efficient fashion. In a default switching scenario, an input port of the AWG is connected to an output port via a single wavelength. This can severely limit the capacity between broadcast domains, resulting in interdomain traffic switching bottlenecks. In this paper, we examine the possibility of resolving capacity bottlenecks by exploiting multiple AWG free spectral ranges (FSRs), i.e., setting up multiple parallel connections between each pair of broadcast domains. To this end, we introduce a multi-FSR scheduling algorithm for interconnecting broadcast domains by fairly distributing the wavelength resources among them. We develop a general-purpose analytical framework to study the blocking probabilities in a multistage switching scenario and compare our results with Monte Carlo simulations. Our study points to significant improvements with a moderate increase in the number of FSRs. We show that an FSR count beyond four results in diminishing returns. Furthermore, to investigate the trade-offs between the network- and physical-layer effects, we conduct a cross-layer analysis, taking into account pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) and rate-adaptive forward error correction (FEC). We illustrate how the effective bit rate per port increases with an increase in the number of FSRs. %We also look at the advantages of an impairment-aware scheduling strategy in a multi-FSR switching scenario

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

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

IP multicast over WDM networks

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Overcoming the Switching Bottlenecks in Wavelength-Routing, Multicast-Enabled Architectures

Modular optical switch architectures combining wavelength routing based on arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) devices and multicasting based on star couplers hold promise for flexibly addressing the exponentially growing traffic demands in a cost- and power-efficient fashion. In a default switching scenario, an input port of the AWG is connected to an output port via a single wavelength. This can severely limit the capacity between broadcast domains, resulting in interdomain traffic switching bottlenecks. An unexplored solution to this issue is to exploit multiple AWG free spectral ranges (FSRs), i.e., to set up multiple parallel connections between each pair of broadcast domains. In this paper, we study, for the first time, the influence of the FSR count on the throughput of a multistage switching architecture and propose a generic and novel analytical framework to estimate the blocking probability. We assess the accuracy of our analytical results via Monte Carlo simulations. Our study points to significant improvements with a moderate increase in the number of FSRs. We show that an FSR count beyond four results in diminishing returns. Furthermore, to investigate the tradeoffs between the network- and physical-layer effects, we conduct a cross-layer analysis, taking into account pulse amplitude modulation and rate-adaptive forward error correction. We illustrate how the effective bit rate per port increases with an increase in the number of FSRs

Design of power efficient multicast algorithms for sparse split WDM networks

Recent years witnessed tremendous increase in data traffic as new Internet applications were launched. Optical networks employing recent technologies such as DWDM and EDFA`s emerged as the most prominent and most promising solutions in terms of their ability to keep with the demand on bandwidth. However for a class of applications bandwidth is not the only important requirement, These applications require efficient multicast operations. They include data bases, audio/video conferencing, distributed computing etc. Multicasting in the optical domain however has its own unique set of problems. First, an optical signal can be split among the outputs of a node but the power due to splitting can be significantly reduced. Second, the hardware for split nodes is relatively expensive and therefore we cannot afford to employ it at every node. Third, there are other sources of losses such as attenuation losses and multiplexing /de-multiplexing losses. This thesis deals with the important issue of Power Efficient multicast in WDM optical networks. We report three new algorithms for constructing power efficient multicast trees and forests. Our algorithms are the first to take into account all possible sources of power losses while constructing the trees. We utilize the techniques of backtracking and tree pruning judiciously to achieve very power efficient multicast trees. The first two algorithms use modified versions of the shortest path heuristic to build the tree. The third algorithm however, uses a novel concept and considers power at every tree building step. In this algorithm, the order of inclusion of destination nodes into the tree is based on the power distribution in the tree and not distance. All three algorithms prune the trees if the power levels at the destinations are not acceptable. The performance of these three algorithms under several constraints is studied on several irregular topologies. All three algorithms reported in this work produce significant improvements in signal strength at the set of destinations over the existing multicast algorithms. Numerical results show that our third algorithm outperforms the first two algorithms as well as the existing multicasting algorithms