Next-Generation Optical Backbone Networks

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Our Internet is congested today. As more users get on the Internet, and as their demand for bandwidth-intensive applications (web browsers, java programs, video conferencing, etc.) increases, there emerges an acute need for very high-bandwidth transport facilities. The design of faster IP routers and high-speed ATM switches are important measures, but they are ``stop-gap'' efforts since the corresponding network architectures are still limited by electronic speed. To elevate the Internet to the next generation, a networking technology revolution is needed that can scale up its existing capability (particularly its bandwidth) by 2 to 3 orders of magnitude! Fortunately, fiber optics is our ``savior.'' Given that a single-mode fiber's potential bandwidth is nearly 50 Tbps, every effort should be made to tap into this huge resource. Wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) can exploit this bandwidth by requiring that each end-user's equipment operate only at electronic rate, but multiple WDM channels from different end-users are multiplexed on the same fiber. This research project is targeted towards building the backbone of the next generation of our networks using optical WDM. Specifically, the following research topics will be addressed: * WDM Network Control and Management (NC&M), in order to build a virtually ``reconfigurable'' Internet that allocates bandwidth to users on demand, with the corresponding research challenges being development of alternate-path routing, fault management, and control channel management mechanisms. * Light-Trees: Multicast Optical Backbone, that can efficiently support not only many emerging multicast applications, but also provide faster service to some unicast applications by reducing the ``average hop distance'' between end points of connections. * IP over WDM, so that the next-generation network is truly scalable, i.e., it can work smoothly with our existing Internet infrastructure. * Combatting Physical Laye r Impairments, so that many of the desirable properties of optics can be exploited while employing smart network algorithms to ``correct" for some of its not-so-desirable properties.