| This thesis addresses the important problem of how to migrate the networking functionalities and intelligence down to the optical layer, including traffic engineering, switching, and selective dynamic provisioning/restoration of diverse traffic granularity, all supported entirely on the optical layer's terms. Specifically, this work examines the technological requirements and assesses the performance analysis and feasibility for implementing a novel, simple, and scalable optical networking paradigm that can efficiently support fully automated pure layer 1 optical networking service at any bandwidth granularity.; To realize such an ambitious initiative, we devise four optical networking innovations: (1) A fully intelligent and agile optical transport layer, (2) A novel hybrid optical node architecture, (3) An integrated control plane that manages both layers (later-1 and layer2/3), which must be owned by the optical layer rather than by the IP/MPLS routers as it is the case in the peer model, (4) A fully distributed integrated routing and signaling framework for dynamically provisioning diverse traffic granularity (on a per-call basis including both full-lambda and sub-lambda traffic flows) entirely on the optical layer's terms.; To the best of our knowledge, developing integrated routing and signaling algorithms and protocols for provisioning sub-lambda connection requests at the optical layer is a new and challenging issue that has never been addressed before. The proposed integrated routing and signaling protocols go beyond those being developed within GMPLS by the IETF and OIF. Provisioning of diverse traffic granularity entirely on the optical layer's terms, as this work will show, introduces numerous new challenges including additional control plane complexities that need to be addressed.; While both technology trends and ongoing debate and activities within both the research communities and standard bodies point compellingly to network intelligence moving up to higher layers, e.g. IP layer (favoring the intelligence of routers over optical switches), we argue, as this work will show, that moving the networking functionality and intelligence down to the optical layer (favoring the intelligence of optical switches over routers), is more compelling in terms of simplicity, scalability, overall cost savings, and the feasibility for near-term deployment.; Finally, we show the feasibility of implementing several significant and far-reaching practical applications enabled by the proposed optical networking paradigm. |
