Optical Networks

Optical Networks
Author 1 Vinaykumar Tatti final yr BE SJMIT Chitradurga Karnataka
tvinay372@gmail.com
Author 2 Pavankumar D MTech Ubdtce davangere karnataka
pavidn@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION TO OPTICAL PACKET SWITCHING

NETWORK
Telecommunication networks are experiencing a dramatic in demand for
takeup of the Internet and associated services. To support this demand economically,
transport networks are evolving to provide a reconfigurable optical layer which,with
optical cross-connects, will realize a high band-width flexible core, as well as
providing large capacity.Optical packet switching promises to bring the flexibility and
efficiency to transparent optical networking with bit rates extending beyond that
currently available with electronic router technologies. However, it is impractical to
evolve the current Internet to one based on optical circuit switches because the
Internet requires per packet switching.
All-optical networks put wavelength conversion with optical functionalities
(optical cross-connects and add-drop multiplexers) in the place of electronic
switching. The usability of the optical packet switching that comes with it, offering
high speed data rate/format transparency and configurability, is one of the most
important features in supporting the various forms (speech, movie etc.) of information
transfer in the near future.
In a WDM (wave-length division multiplexing) system an all-optical path is
established between two communication nodes, if circuit-switching is performed by
wavelength routing. Since Internet traffic is bursty at all time scales, this method will
result in a low bandwidth utilization, implying that such paths may not be efficient.
On the other hand, Optical packet switching is suitable for supporting bursty traffic
since it allows statistical sharing of the channel bandwidth among packets that belong
to different source and destination pairs. Here, the payload (i.e. data) will remain in
the optic form, while its header may be processed electronically.

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Thus it can provide a scalable functioning IP traffic aggregator that may

provide greater flexibility and efficiency than an electronic routers with reduced cost.
The major advantage of optical packet switching is its bandwidth efficiency and
ability to support diverse services.

OVERVIEW
Packet-Switching in Today’s Optical Network
Routing and transmission are the basic functions required to move packets
through a network. In today’s network, the packet routing and transmission problems
are designed to be handled separately.
A router moves randomly arriving packets through the network by directing
them from its multiple inputs to outputs and transmitting them on a link to the next
router. The router uses information carried with arriving packets (e.g., Packet type,
priority) to forward them from its input to outputs ports as efficiently as possible with
minimal packet loss and disruption to the packet flow. This Process of merging
multiple random input packet streams onto common outputs is called statistical
multiplexing.
In smaller networks, the link between routers can be made directly using
Ethernet; however, in the higher capacity networks, transmission systems between
routers employ synchronous transport framing techniques
like synchronous optical network(SONET), packet over SONET(POS). This added
layer of framing simplifies transmission between routers. The transport layer that
connects routers can be designed to handle the packets synchronously or
asynchronously.

DRIVING FACTORS FOR OPTICAL NETWORKS

 FIBRE CAPACITY
• Copper wires & single-modes fibres
• Multi-mode Optical fibres

 RESTORTION CAPABILITY

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• Carried out at the optical layer

• Faster &more econimical
 REDUCED COST
• Simple switching equipment
 WAVELENGTH SERVICES
• Increase revenue

All-optical Packet Switching Networks

In all-optical packet switched network the data is maintained in the optical
format throughout the routing and transmission process. One approach that has been
widely used is the All-Optical Label Swapping (AOLS). Packets can be routed
independent of the payload bit rate, coding format or length. AOLS is not limited to
handling only IP packets but also can handle asynchronous transfer mode cells,
optical bursts, data file transfer, and data structure without SONET framing. Optical
label can be coded using mixed-rate serial approach.
In this approach (mixed-rate serial) a lower bit rate label is attached to the
front end of the packet. The packet bit-rate is then independent of the label bit-rate,
and the label can be detected and processed using lower-cost electronics in order to
make routing decisions. However, the actual removal and replacement of the label
with respect to packet is done with optics. While the packet contains the original
electronic IP network data and routing information, the label contains routing
information specially used in optical packet routing layer. The label may also contain
bits for error checking ad framing and timing information for electronic label recovery
and processing.
In figure 1 the IP packets enter the network through the entrance node where
they are encapsulated with an optical label and retransmitted on a new wavelength.
Once inside the AOLS network, only the optical label is used to make routing
decision, and the wavelength is used to dynamically redirect (forward) them to the
next node. At the internal core nodes the label is optically erased, the packet is
optically regenerated, a new label is attached, and the packet is converted to a new
wavelength. Packets and their labels may also be replicated at an optical router to

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realize the multicast function. Throughout this process, the contents that first entered
the core network (e.g., the IP packet header and payload) are not passed through
electronics and are

Figure 1: An All-Optical Label Swapping Network

kept intact until the packet exits the core optical network through the outlet node
where the optical label is removed and the original packet is handed back to the
electronic routing hardware the same as it is entered the core network. The functions–
label replacement, packet regeneration and wavelength conversion – are handled in
the optical domain using optical signal processing technique.
Fig. 2 depicts the physical network elements connected by fiber links and the
packet routing and forwarding hierarchy. IP packets are generated at the electronic
routing layer and processed in an adaptation layer that “encapsulates” IP packets with
an optical label without modifying the original packet structure. The adaptation layer
also shifts the packet and label to a new wavelength specified by local routing tables.
An optical multiplexing layer multiplexes labeled packets onto a shared fiber medium.
Several optical multiplexing approaches may be used including insertion directly onto
an available WDM channel, packet compression through optical time division
multiplexing or time interleaving through optical time division multiplexing. This
technique is not limited to IP packets and other packet or cell structures like ATM
may also be routed. Once inside the core network, core routers or AOLS sub-nets

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perform routing and forwarding functions. The routing function computes a new label
and wavelength from an internal routing table given the current label, current
wavelength, and fiber port. The routing tables (at egress and core routers) are

generated by converting IP addresses into smaller pairs of labels and wavelengths and
distribute them across the networks. The forwarding involves swapping the original
label with the new label and physically converting the labeled packet to the new

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wavelength.

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Fig 2: Layered routing and forwarding hierarchy for AOLS network

The reverse process of optical demultiplexing, adaptation and electronic

routing are performed at egress node.

Figure 3: Optical Label Swapping Module Function

Here optically labeled packets at the input have majority of the input optical
power directed to the upper photonic packet processing plane and small portion of the
optical power is directed to the lower electronic label processing plane. The photonic
plane handles optical data regeneration, optical label removal, optical label rewriting,
and packet rate wavelength switching. The lower electronic plane recovers the label

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into electronic memory and uses lookup tables and other digital logic to determine the
new optical label and the new optical wavelength of the outgoing packet. The
electronic plane sets the new optical label and wavelength in the upper photonic
plane. A static fiber delay is used at the photonic plane input to match the processing
delay differences between the two planes.

Optical label coding techniques.

The method of coding the label onto a packet impacts the channel bandwidth
efficiency, and the transmission quality of the packet and label. Two approaches to
optical label coding are the
 Fixed rate serial label and the
 Optical subcarrier multiplexed label.

Figure 4: Optical Label coding Techniques (a) Serial Coding (b) Optical
Subcarrier multiplexed coding

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With serial coding, a fixed bit rate label is multiplexed at the head of the IP
packet with the two separated by an optical guard-band (OGB) as shown in Fig. 4(a).
The OGB is use to facilitate label removal and reinsertion without static packet
buffering and to accommodate finite switching times of optical switching and
wavelength conversion. The bit-serial label is encoded on the same optical
wavelength as the IP packet and is encoded as a baseband signal.
For optical subcarrier multiplexed labels, a baseband label is modulated
onto a RF subcarrier and then multiplexed with the IP packet on the same wavelength
as shown in Fig. 4(b).

This multiplexing may be performed electronically or optically. An OGB is not

necessary in the subcarrier case since the label is transmitted in parallel with the
packet. It is only necessary that the label fit within the boundaries of the packet,
however an OGB may be used if accumulated misalignment of the label and payload
occurs during multiple hops.
Packet transparency is realized by setting a fixed label bit rate and modulation
format independent of the packet bit rate. The choice of label bit rate is driven by a
combination of factors including the speed of the burst-mode label recovery
electronics and the duration of the label relative to the shortest packets at the fastest
packet bit rates. Additionally, running the label at a lower bit rate allows the use of
lower cost electronics to process the label. The label and packet bits can be encoded
using different data formats to facilitate data and clock recovery. For example, if the
IP packet is compressed to 40 Gb/s using an RZ data format, the label can be encoded
at 2.5 Gb/s using NRZ format. A 20-bit label transmitted at 2.5 Gb/s occupies the
same duration as a 40-byte packet transmitted at 40 Gb/s. Encapsulation of IP packets
using optical labels has advantages in that the contents of the original IP packet are
not modified and the label is coded at the same wavelength as the IP packet. In the
serial case, erasure and rewriting of the label may be performed independently of the
IP packet bit rate, however, timing of the label replacement and possibly erasure
process is somewhat time critical. The subcarrier labels have the advantage that they
can be removed and replaced more asynchronously with respect to the packet but
potentially suffer from dispersion induced fading.

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IP over Optical Network

Figure5: IP over Optical Network

Here, IP routers are attached to an optical core network, and connected to their
peers over dynamically established switched lightpaths. The optical core itself is
incapable of processing individual IP packets. The interaction between the IP routers
and the optical core is over a well-defined signaling and routing interface, known as
the user-network interface (UNI).

The optical network consists of multiple optical subnetworks interconnected

by optical links in a general topology (referred to as an optical mesh network]). This

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network may consist of switches from multiple vendors, with each subnetwork
containing switches from a single vendor. Each subnetwork is assumed to be mesh-
connected. The interaction between subnetworks is over a well-defined signaling and
routing interface, known as the network-network interface (NNI).

The following interconnection models are possible for IP over optical networks:

 The peer model: Under this model, the IP and optical networks are treated
together as a single integrated network managed and traffic engineered in a
unified manner. In this regard, the OXCs (optical cross connects) are treated
just like any other router as far as the control plane is concerned. Thus, from a
routing and signaling point of view, there is no distinction between the UNI,
the NNI, and any other router-to-router interface. A single routing protocol
instance runs over both the IP and optical domains. The advantage of the peer
model is that it allows seamless interconnection of IP and optical networks; its
drawback is that it requires routing information specific to optical networks to
be known to routers

 The overlay model: Under this model, the IP network routing, topology
distribution, and signaling protocols are independent of the corresponding
protocols in the optical network. The advantage of the overlay model is that it
is the most practical for near-term deployment; its drawback is that it requires
the creation and management of IP routing adjacencies over the optical
network.

 The interdomain model: Under this model, there are actually separate routing
instances in the IP and optical domains, but information from one routing
instance is passed through the other routing instance. For example, external IP
addresses could be carried by the optical routing protocols to allow
reachability information to be passed to IP clients. The interdomain model
combines the best of the peer and overlay interconnection models; it is

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relatively easy to deploy compared to the peer model in the near term, but
does not require the management of IP routing adjacencies over the optical

Routing Approaches

 Integrated Routing -- This routing approach supports the peer

interconnection model. Under this approach, the IP and optical networks
are assumed to run the same instance of an IP routing protocol, say, Open
Shortest Path First (OSPF), with suitable "optical" extensions. These
extensions capture optical link parameters and any constraints specific to
optical networks. The topology and link state information maintained by
all nodes (OXCs and routers) is identical. This permits a router to compute
an end-to-end path to another router across the optical network

 Domain-Specific Routing -- This approach supports the interdomain

interconnection model. Under this approach, routing within the optical and
IP domains are separated, with a standard routing protocol running
between domains. The interdomain IP routing protocol, Border Gateway
Protocol (BGP), may be adapted for exchanging routing information
between IP and optical domains. This would allow the routers to advertise
IP address prefixes within their network to the optical network and to
receive external IP address prefixes from the optical network,

 Overlay Routing -- This routing approach supports the overlay

interconnection model. Under this approach, the optical network
implements a registry that allows border routers to register their IP
addresses and VPON identifiers

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Advantages and Applications

Advantages:

 Large distance between nodes

 Low noise & interference
 Availability if more bandwidth-WDM.
 Greater reliability
 The OPS will have the capability to aggregate the traffic from a large
number of IP routers.
 Takes full advantage of capacity and functionality provided by the
optical layer
 Data transmission at high bit rates
Applications:
 Access to high-bandwidth services.
 Video Conferencing.
 Electronic commerce.
 High speed Video Imaging.
 Communication
 Global Positioning Systems
 Internet applications.
 RADAR detection.
 Power –line monitors.
 Instrumentation
 Spectrum Analyser.
 Data acquisition.
 Digital oscilloscopes.

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 Biomedical
 Diagnostic tool.
 Patient monitioring
 Military
 Navigation
 RADAR and SONAR processing.

Conclusion

 The impact of Optical networks can be measured in two ways

 Economic impact.
 Carrier’s ability to new services.
 Offer efficient traffic aggregation and finer service granularity
 Increased bandwidth
 Greater reliability.
 Faster service provision
 Scalability
 More flexible.

Thus,the optical switching is a promising technology for realizing IP over WDM

optical networking proves to be a boon in establishing the communication in a more
effictive and prolific manner,thereby catering the demands for high-throughput
networks for communication of voice,video,images and data.Today’s optical network
planning lies in implementing a dynamically reconfigurable optical transport layer. In
near future an optical channels, with bit rates on the order of 10-40 Gb/s.

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“Optical net works will improve the way we live”

REFERENCES

 Bala Rajagopalan et.al, “IP over Optical Networks Architectural Aspect”,

www.Comsoc.org

 D.J.Bluementhal et.al, “Optical Signal Processing for Optical Packet

Switching Networks”, IEEE Communications, Feb2003

 A.Carena et al., “OPERA:An Opitical Packet Experimental Routing

Architecture with Label Swapping Capability”,J.Lightwave tech,Dec1998.

 N Ghani,S Dixit and T.S.Wang “on IP over WDM integration,”IEEE

Commun.mag.,mar.2000.

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