FIBER OPTICS AND NETWORKS

15EC82
MODULE 5 : OPTICAL NETWORKS
OVERVIEW

• Multiprotocol Label Switching

• Optical burst switching networks
 Multiprotocol Label Switching
 provides for the efficient designation, routing, forwarding
and switching of traffic flows through an optical packet-
switched network.
originally proposed by Cisco Systems Inc. and was called tag
switching
 later renamed label switching when the concept was adopted
by the Internet Engineering Task Force for open
standardization.
uses labels to forward traffic .
 When a labeled packet arrives at a label switching router
(LSR), the incoming label will determine the path of this
packet within the MPLS network.
The MPLS label forwarding will then swap this label to the
appropriate outgoing label and send the packet on the next
network hop.
These labels are assigned to packets based on grouping or
forwarding equivalence classes.
 Packets belonging to the same forwarding equivalence class
receive the same treatment.
 allows explicit control of routing based on destination and
source addresses.
MPLS is a fast and efficient protocol.
In practice, an LSR receives a packet from one interface,
replaces the incoming label in the MPLS header by an
outgoing label, and forwards the packet out to another
interface.

Thus MPLS defines a virtual circuit capability depending

on the type of network and, in particular, the type of
switching, by correlating the switching type with the label.
• MPLS is independent of both layer 2 and layer 3 in the
OSI model

• can support ATM, frame relay and Ethernet as a data link

layer.

• popular service provided by MPLS based networks is IP

virtual private networks (VPNs) deployed over
SDH/SONET.

• These IP-VPNs allow business corporations to create a

secure, dedicated wide area network (WAN) in order to
connect their offices around the world, without the expense
of private circuits or private data networks.
• Generalized MPLS (GMPLS) therefore extends MPLS providing
additional protocols for wavelength and physical space domains .

• supports transparent traffic using DWDM and OXCs for the

implementation of label switching.

• The former utilizes wavelengths as labels where the OXCs use

fibers as labels.

• For devices that switch in any domain GMPLS provides the

control and management planes .

• incorporates the routing protocols for the automatic discovery of

the network topology and announces resource availability to optical
nodes.

• Both these factors are significant when an optical link failure

The signaling protocols for the establishment of label-
switched paths (LSPs) for the GMPLS therefore include
the enhancements to MPLS as follows:

(a) label exchange to include nonpacket networks ;

(b) establishment of bidirectional LSPs;
(c) signaling for the establishment of a backup path ;
(d) expediting label assignment via a suggested label ;
(e) waveband switching support – a set of contiguous
wavelengths switched together.
In addition, GMPLS incorporates a link management
protocol which performs the following four functions:

• control of channel management which is established by

negotiating the link parameters and ensuring the health
of a link ;
• link connectivity verification which ensures the
physical connectivity of the link between the neighboring
nodes;
• link property correlation which identifies the link
properties of the adjacent nodes ;
• fault isolation to enable a single or multiple faults to be
isolated in the optical domain.
 Optical burst switching networks
 Combining important aspects of optical circuit switching and
optical packet switching results in optical burst switching (OBS).
 Moreover, as OBS operates at the subwavelength level it therefore
provides for rapid setup and teardown of optical network
lightpaths.
 This hybrid switching and routing technology uses electronics to
control routing decisions but keeps data in the optical domain as it
passes through each optical node.
 Packets with a common destination are aggregated in edge routing
nodes into larger transmission units called a burst or a data burst
(DB), each of which is transmitted separately from the data
control packet called the burst header cell (BHC) containing
necessary information .
Depending on the network dimension and granularity (i.e.
burst size), either one- or two-way signaling protocols are
used at the edge routers of an OBS network.
With two-way signaling, sending back an acknowledgment
signal to confirm the safe arrival of the signal is required,
whereas no such feedback mechanism is available when
using one-way signaling protocols.
One-way protocols include tell-and-go (TAG) and just
enough- time . These are also referred to as one-pass
reservation protocols.
Examples of two-way signaling protocols are tell-and-wait
(TAW) and just-in-time (JIT) , which are predominantly
used for the purpose of burst reservation and scheduling .
In case of the JET or TAG protocols, the burst transmission
does not wait for the acknowledgment of successful end-to-end
path setup and the burst transmission is initiated immediately,
or shortly after the burst has been assembled following the
control packet being sent out.
If the burst transmission with the TAG protocol is delayed with
respect to the control header, then the delay is referred to as
offset time and can be reduced by compensating the processing
times.
In this scheme less bandwidth is therefore wasted but the burst
drop rate increases and it is not considered to be as reliable.
Due to the submillisecond burst duration assumed in TAG burst
management, this scheme is usually considered for application
in metropolitan and access networks where distances are
comparatively short .
The JIT and TAW protocols utilize ATM delayed
transmission and they wait for an acknowledgment before
sending a burst. This process assumes conventional end-to-
end transmission leading to a setup delay for the optical
bursts .

 If the intermediate switches are set in advance during the

setup phase to avoid this delay, then the bandwidth wasted
can be much higher than the bandwidth actually needed for
burst transmission.
 In addition to burst reservation, burst scheduling assigns and
manages the resources for individual burst switching nodes.
 Burst scheduling schemes can be classified based on the duration
for which resources are scheduled for a burst.
 The reserve-a-limited duration (RLD) and reserve-a-fixed duration
(RFD) schemes are commonly adopted for burst reservation.
 The RLD requires the sender to signal the start and end of a burst
and resources are explicitly reserved until the end of burst
transmission.
 For each resource, the idle time is recorded.
 The RFD scheme, however, considers the exact start and end time
of bursts for resource scheduling.
 several designs have been used to optimize resource allocation of
both the RLD andRFD schemes by improving wavelength selection
or by minimizing voids .
Advanced techniques referred to as adaptive and autonomic
OBS have also been proposed which can learn and adapt
new routes after acquiring network information such as
wavelength routing, wavelength selection, protection and
the information related to the restoration mechanisms.
 Such OBS techniques use a feedback mechanism
to optimize the selection of control and routing
information and therefore they are capable of being both
self-protecting and self-optimizing .
Thank you.....