Design, control, and performance evaluation of all-optically integrated access and metro WDM networks

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Very recent research results show that currently widely deployed network topologies such as bidirectional rings and hierarchical networks are poorly suited to support unpredicted shifts in future traffic loads and require topological modifications in order to improve their network lifetime. The ability of a network to sustain and efficiently support unpredicted changes and shifts in future traffic loads is becoming increasingly important due to emerging services and applications such as file sharing, on-line games, and grids. These novel applications have specific traffic characteristics which are expected to change today's network traffic loads significantly and already start posing severe challenges on existing access and metro network infrastructures. Apart from alleviating the bandwidth bottlenecks in the first/last mile and at the metro level of today's telecommunications networks infrastructure, novel network architectures and protocols have to be developed and examined which not only efficiently support conventional voice, web, and streaming traffic as well as recently emerging applications, but also support unpredicted shifts in traffic loads due to future, not yet existing applications and traffic types in a cost-effective, pay-as-you-grow, and future-proof manner. The proposed research program aims at alleviating both aforementioned bandwidth bottlenecks. We extend current Ethernet-based single-channel networks to multichannel systems by using multiple wavelength channels in the existing fiber infrastructure. We study the all-optical integration of both access and metro networks and develop novel control paradigms. Apart from voice, video, and data traffic, the resultant access-metro network will be able to efficiently support emerging applications such as file sharing and on-line games. In addition, we will investigate how the proposed architecture efficiently supports unpredicted traffic shifts due to future, not yet existing applications and traffic types. The obtained results will lead to novel next-generation low-cost access-metro networks with a dramatically improved lifetime.