High performance optical switch test-bed for multicast applications

传统互联网使用单个多播地址空间在单个路由上下文中执行分组多播。这将导致不同客户的不同组播流，从而使用多个路由器，这最终可能导致多个路由上下文和重叠的地址空间。另一方面，光网络受到光比特不能被存储的事实的阻碍，因此必须在光学元件级别转换本质上是电的可以被存储的比特序列中的光流。对于未经疏导或统计多路复用的业务，全光电路往往效率低下，并且在具有成本效益的光缓冲和报头解析实现在商业上可用之前，全光分组交换将不会实用。 针对Viscore组播应用的新型高性能光交换机，不需要光缓存或包级解析，当持续的业务量以光波长分开时，它比电路交换更高效。因此，Viscore的概念验证光交换机将连接到渥太华大学的网络计算和控制技术(NCCT)研究实验室，以开发新的协议和交换技术。同时，设计并实现了一个用于测试组播会话部署在实际网络中的光交换机效率和其他性能参数的试验台，该项目提案涉及通信和数据行业的一个活跃研究领域，与组播数据发布相关 频道。这解决了长期存在的在处理数据的同时将数据发送给众多用户的问题。覆盖信道上的光交换对于许多处理敏感数据的行业非常重要，包括银行、医疗保健部门和金融服务行业。这是一项及时的任务，为Viscore、渥太华大学和加拿大提供了许多潜在的好处。

Conventional Internet networks perform packet multicasting in a single routing context using a single multicast address space. This will result in various multicast streams for different customers, thus the use of multiple routers which can eventually lead to multiple routing contexts and overlapped address spaces. Optical networks on the other hand, are hindered by the fact that light bits cannot be stored, and thus have to convert at the optical element level the optical flow in sequences of bits which being electrical in nature can be stored. All-optical circuits tend to be inefficient for traffic that has not been groomed or statistically multiplexed, and all-optical packet switching will not be practical until cost-effective optical buffering and header parsing implementations are commercially available. The new high-performance optical switch for multicast applications of Viscore, does not require optical buffering or packet-level parsing, and it is more efficient than circuit switching when the sustained traffic volume is separated in optical wavelengths. The proof of concept optical switches of Viscore will be therefore connected to the Network Computing and Control Technologies (NCCT) research laboratory of the University of Ottawa, in order to develop new protocols and switching technologies. At the same time, a test bed for determining the efficiency and other performance parameters of the optical switches, when multicast sessions are deployed in the real network of NCCT, will be designed and implemented.The project proposal deals with an active area of research of communications and data industry,related to data publishing via multicast channels. This solves the long standing problem of processing data while sent simultaneously to a multitude of users. The optical switching on mulch-channels is important for a number of industries that deal with sensitive data, including the banking, the healthcare sector and the financial services industry.This is a timely undertaking which offers a multitude of potential benefits to Viscore, the University of Ottawa, and Canada.