Collaborative Research: CNS Core: MEDIUM: RUI: Optics Without Borders

互联网对生活的各个方面都至关重要，它将企业、组织和国内外的人们联系起来，提供对大量信息的访问，并实现远程工作、远程医疗和远程教育等先进服务。今天的互联网网络基础设施由多个设备供应商生产的路由器组成，这些路由器协同工作，在世界上任何两点之间提供连接。 这种可互操作的网络架构对于高效、有效的互联网至关重要，也是使每比特信息成本得以降低的一个因素，即使每连接的总体平均带宽已大幅增加。 然而，目前部署的作为互联网基础的光纤网络并不共享这种“开放”的网络架构，在网络边界处需要昂贵的设备。 通过将开放式网络方法扩展到光层，使光信号能够成功穿越不同的光纤跨度、网络和设备供应商域，预计我们可以显著加快创新步伐，降低成本和改善国家的网络基础设施。该项目的重点是对开放式光纤网络（OON）的两个关键贡献实现跨多个域的无缝光连接的架构：（a）以相干收发机为基础的新遥测技术的定义、研究和实验验证，其目的是提高网络控制器准确估计多供应商和多域光纤网络基础设施中的光信号的传输性能的能力;以及（B）开源实时光纤网络基础设施仿真器的设计、开发、验证和传播，该仿真器利用新的遥测技术来演示现有和新开发的软件定义网络（SDN）控制器的可扩展性和效率，同时考虑跨多个层的交互（光纤、以太网、IP）以及由于机械应力、老化和其他相关因素而改变光纤网络基础设施的特性。仿真器模拟光纤网络及其光学设备的行为，从而使研究人员能够在OON上进行实验工作，而无需购买，设置和维护昂贵的光学设备。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Internet is critical to every aspect of life, connecting businesses, organizations, and people domestically and internationally, providing access to vast amounts of information, and enabling advanced services like telework, telehealth and tele-education. Today’s Internet network infrastructure consists of routers produced by multiple equipment vendors that collaboratively work together to deliver connectivity between any two points in the world. This interoperable network architecture is both critical to an efficient, effective Internet and a factor in enabling the cost-per-bit of information to decrease even as overall average bandwidth-per-connection has increased dramatically. However, the currently deployed fiber optic networks that underlie the Internet do not share this ‘open’ network architecture, requiring expensive equipment at network boundaries. By extending the open networking approach to the optical layer so that optical signals can successfully traverse different fiber spans, networks and equipment vendor domains, it is expected that we can significantly increase the pace of innovation, decrease costs and improve the nation's cyberinfrastructure.This project focuses on two key contributions towards an open optical networking (OON) architecture to enable seamless optical connections across multiple domains: (a) the definition, investigation, and experimental validation of new telemetric techniques based on coherent transceivers, whose objective is to improve the ability of network controllers to accurately estimate the transmission performance of an optical signal in a multi-vendor and multi-domain fiber network infrastructure; and (b) the design, development, validation, and dissemination of an open-source real-time fiber network infrastructure emulator that takes advantage of the new telemetric technology to demonstrate the scalability and efficiency of both existing and newly developed Software Defined Network (SDN) controllers, while taking into account the interaction across multiple layers (fiber, Ethernet, IP) and changing characteristics of the fiber network infrastructure due to mechanical stress, aging, and other relevant factors. The emulator mimics the behavior of a fiber network and its optical equipment, thus enabling researchers to conduct experimental work on OON without the burden of acquiring, setting up, and maintaining expensive optical equipment. It is also useful as a planning tool for new experimental testbed deployments or connections that span more than one domain.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.