No abstract

A network architecture that integrates several WDM PON access segments in a metropolitan area network and uses optical circuit/burst switching is presented here. This architecture targets the delivery of very high speed end to end optical communications between the edge nodes connecting the end users. The combination of circuit switching and burst transmission allows the simultaneous delivery of real-time applications (VoIP, Video) and other data-oriented applications (Internet, peer-to-peer). In the proposed architecture there is a clear separation of the functions in a data plane and a control plane. A centralized control entity manages the overall architecture. A dedicated aggregation node acts as a gateway to external networks. After a presentation of the proposed network architecture, this paper focuses on the performance evaluation of the control plane using simulation. Our results show that the queuing delay remains acceptable even under heavy traffic loads.

No abstract