Control plane design in multidomain/multilayer optical networks

Abstract

As optical networks proliferate, there is a growing need to address distributed multidomain provisioning. Although multi-domain operation has been well-studied in packet/cellswitching networks, the multilayer (granularity) circuit-switched nature of modern optical networks presents a unique set of challenges. This survey addresses control plane design for such heterogeneous infrastructures and describes new challenges in the areas of state dissemination, path computation, and survivability. Sample results from a recent study also are presented.

A survey of survivability in multi-domain optical networks

“…Therefore, it is imperative to incorporate survivability mechanisms in the network to guarantee network services. Survivability can be provided on different layers of the network [24], such as the IP, MPLS, SONET/SDH, and WDM layers. Although each of the higher layers may have its own recovery mechanism, it is interesting to ensure survivability on the WDM layer since it presents a number of advantages compared to survivability on higher layers, such as fast service recovery, efficient resource utilization and transparency of protocols [21].…”

Optical Multi-Domain Routing

“…This set of problems has never been faced as a whole (this indeed would mean to substitute BGP) but rather only incremental or partial solutions have been adopted. An interesting point here is that this set of problems can be mapped almost directly into a new hexagon (cf., right-hand side of Fig.1), hence defining a set of research challenges [2] for optical multi-domain routing. Next a short description of each of these challenges is presented:…”

Enhanced crankback signaling for multi-domain IP/MPLS networks

“…Here a wide range of constraintbased routing solutions have been proposed, but most have focused on single ''domain" settings in which a provisioning entity has complete ''network-wide" topology/resource views, e.g., single autonomous system (AS) running link-state routing [1,2]. However, as user application demands grow, there is a strong desire to achieve TE provisioning across multiple domains, i.e., inter-AS TE, particularly for higher-end applications such as voice over IP (VoIP), packet video transport, virtual private network (VPN) extension, etc.…”