Optical burst switching for the next generation Optical Internet

In recent years, Internet Protocol (IP) over Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) networks for the next generation Internet (or the so-called Optical Internet) have received enormous attention. There are two main drivers for an Optical Internet. One is the explosion of Internet traffic, which seems to keep growing exponentially. The other driver is the rapid advance in the WDM optical networking technology. In this study, key issues in the optical (WDM) layer will be investigated.; As a novel switching paradigm for Optical Internet, Optical Burst Switching (OBS) is discussed. By leveraging the attractive properties of optical communications and at the same time, taking into account its limitations, OBS can combine the best of optical circuit-switching and packet/cell switching. The general concept of JET-based OBS protocol is described, including offset time and delayed reservation.; In the next generation Optical Internet, one must address how to support Quality of Service (QoS) at the WDM layer since current IP provides only best effort services. The offset-time-based QoS scheme is proposed as a way of supporting QoS at the WDM layer. Unlike existing QoS schemes, offset-time-based QoS scheme does not mandate the use of buffer to differentiate services.; For the bufferless WDM switch, the performance of offset-time-based QoS scheme is evaluated in term of blocking probability. In addition, the extra offset time required for class isolation is quantified and the theoretical bounds on blocking probability are analyzed.; The offset-time-based scheme is applied to WDM switch with limited fiber delay line (FDL) buffer. We evaluate the effect of having a FDL buffer on the QoS performance of the offset-time-based scheme in terms of the loss probability and queuing delay of bursts.; Finally, in order to dimension the network resources in Optical Internet backbone networks, the performance of the offset-time-based QoS scheme is evaluated for the multi-hop case. In particular, we consider very high performance Backbone Network Service (vBNS) backbone network. Various policies such as drop, retransmission, deflection routing and buffering are considered for performance evaluation. The performance results obtained under these policies are compared to decide the most efficient policy for the WDM backbone network.