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Optical switching techniques featuring the fast and large capacity have the potential to enable low latency and high throughput optical data center networks (DCN) to afford the rapid increasing of traffic-boosted applications. Flexibility of the DCN is of key importance to provide adaptive and dynamic bandwidth to handle the variable traffic patterns generated by the heterogeneous applications while optimizing the network resources. Aiming at providing the flexible bandwidth for optical DCNs, we propose and experimentally investigate a software-defined networking (SDN) enabled reconfigurable optical DCN architecture based on novel optical top of rack (OToR) switch exploiting photonic-integrated wavelength selective switch. Experimental results show that the optical bandwidth per link can be automatically reallocated under the management of the deployed SDN control plane according to the variable traffic patterns. With respect to the network with inflexible interconnections, the average packet loss of the reconfigurable DCN decreases 1 order of magnitude and the server-to-server latency performance improves of 42.2%. Scalability investigation illustrates limited (11.7%) performance degradation as the reconfigurable network scale from 2560 to 40960 servers. Both the numerical and experimental assessments validate the proposed DCN with reconfigurable bandwidth feature and lower latency variations with respect to the inflexible DCNs.

The extremely high number of services with large bandwidth requirements and the increasingly dynamic traffic patterns of cell sites pose major challenges to optical fronthaul networks, rendering them incapable of coping with the extensive, uneven, and real-time traffic that will be generated in the future. In this paper, we first present the design of an adaptive graph convolutional network with gated recurrent unit (AGCN-GRU) network to learn the temporal and spatial dependencies of traffic patterns of cell sites to provide accurate traffic predictions, in which the AGCN model can capture potential spatial relations according to the similarity of network traffic patterns in different areas. Then, we innovatively consider how to deal with the unpredicted burst traffic and propose an AI-assisted intent-based traffic grooming scheme to realise automatic and intelligent cell sites clustering and traffic grooming. Finally, a software-defined testbed for 5G optical fronthaul network was established, on which the proposed schemes were deployed and evaluated by considering traffic datasets of existing optical networks. The experimental results showed that the proposed scheme can optimize network resource allocation, increase the average efficient resource utilization and reduce the average delay and the rejection ratio.

GaN-based micro-LED is an emerging display and communication device, which can work as well as a photodetector, enabling possible applications in machine vision. In this work, we measured the characteristics of micro-LED based photodetector experimentally and proposed a feasible simulation of a novel artificial neural network (ANN) device for the first time based on a micro-LED based photodetector array, providing ultrafast imaging (∼133 million bins per second) and a high image recognition rate. The array itself constitutes a neural network, in which the synaptic weights are tunable by the bias voltage. It has the potentials to be integrated with novel machine vision and reconfigurable computing applications, acting as a role of acceleration and similar functionality expansion. Also, the multi-functionality of micro-LED broadens its application potentials of combining ANN with display and communication.

Network virtualization technology has been proposed to allow multiple heterogeneous virtual networks (VNs) to coexist on a shared substrate network, which increases the utilization of the substrate network. Efficiently mapping VNs on the substrate network is a major challenge on account of the VN embedding (VNE) problem. Meanwhile, energy efficiency has been widely considered in the network design in terms of operation expenses and the ecological awareness. In this paper, we aim to solve the energy-aware VNE problem in flexi-grid optical networks. We provide an integer linear programming (ILP) formulation to minimize the electricity cost of each arriving VN request. We also propose a polynomial-time heuristic algorithm where virtual links are embedded sequentially to keep a reasonable acceptance ratio and maintain a low electricity cost. Numerical results show that the heuristic algorithm performs closely to the ILP for a small size network, and we also demonstrate its applicability to larger networks.

In this paper, we propose a performance monitoring and failure prediction method in optical networks based on machine learning. The primary algorithms of this method are the support vector machine (SVM) and double exponential smoothing (DES). With a focus on risk-aware models in optical networks, the proposed protection plan primarily investigates how to predict the risk of an equipment failure. To the best of our knowledge, this important problem has not yet been fully considered. Experimental results showed that the average prediction accuracy of our method was 95% when predicting the optical equipment failure state. This finding means that our method can forecast an equipment failure risk with high accuracy. Therefore, our proposed DES-SVM method can effectively improve traditional risk-aware models to protect services from possible failures and enhance the optical network stability.

Cloud radio access network (C-RAN) has become a promising scenario to accommodate high-performance services with ubiquitous user coverage and real-time cloud computing using cloud BBUs. In our previous work, we implemented cross stratum optimization of optical network and application stratums resources that allows to accommodate the services in optical networks. In view of this, this study extends to consider the multiple dimensional resources optimization of radio, optical and BBU processing in 5G age. We propose a novel multi-stratum resources optimization (MSRO) architecture with network functions virtualization for cloud-based radio over optical fiber networks (C-RoFN) using software defined control. A global evaluation scheme (GES) for MSRO in C-RoFN is introduced based on the proposed architecture. The MSRO can enhance the responsiveness to dynamic end-to-end user demands and globally optimize radio frequency, optical and BBU resources effectively to maximize radio coverage. The efficiency and feasibility of the proposed architecture are experimentally demonstrated on OpenFlow-based enhanced SDN testbed. The performance of GES under heavy traffic load scenario is also quantitatively evaluated based on MSRO architecture in terms of resource occupation rate and path provisioning latency, compared with other provisioning scheme.

Optical fiber-based in-building network solutions can outperform in the near future copper- and radio-based solutions both regarding performance and costs. POF solutions are maturing, and can already today be cheaper than Cat-5e solutions when ducts are shared with electricity power cabling. We compare the CapEx and OpEx of in-building networks for fiber and Cat-5E solutions. For residential homes, our analysis shows that total network costs during economic lifetime are lowest for a point-to-point duplex POF topology.

We propose and demonstrate a four-port mode-selective optical router on a silicon-on-insulator platform. The passive routing property ensures that the router consumes no power to establish the optical links. For each port, input signals with different modes are selectively routed to the target ports through the pre-designed architecture. In general, the device intrinsically supports broadcasting of multiplexed signals from one port to the other three ports through mode division multiplexing. In some applications, the input signal from one port would only be sent to another port as in reconfigurable optical routers. The prototype is constructed by mode multiplexers/de-multiplexers and single-mode interconnect waveguides between them. The insertion losses for all optical links are lower than 8.0 dB, and the largest optical crosstalk values are lower than -18.7 dB and -22.0 dB for the broadcasting and port-to-port routing modes, respectively, at the wavelength range of 1525-1565 nm. In order to verify the routing functionality, a 40-Gbps bidirectional data transmission experiment is performed. The device offers a promising building block for passive routing by utilizing the dimension of the modes.

Data center interconnection with elastic optical network is a promising scenario to meet the high burstiness and high-bandwidth requirements of data center services. In our previous work, we implemented cross stratum optimization of optical network and application stratums resources that allows to accommodate data center services. In view of this, this study extends the data center resources to user side to enhance the end-to-end quality of service. We propose a novel data center service localization (DCSL) architecture based on virtual resource migration in software defined elastic data center optical network. A migration evaluation scheme (MES) is introduced for DCSL based on the proposed architecture. The DCSL can enhance the responsiveness to the dynamic end-to-end data center demands, and effectively reduce the blocking probability to globally optimize optical network and application resources. The overall feasibility and efficiency of the proposed architecture are experimentally verified on the control plane of our OpenFlow-based enhanced SDN testbed. The performance of MES scheme under heavy traffic load scenario is also quantitatively evaluated based on DCSL architecture in terms of path blocking probability, provisioning latency and resource utilization, compared with other provisioning scheme.

In this paper, we study green optical networks with connection availability guarantee. After introducing a power consumption model for green optical network design, we propose a design method called Availability-Guaranteed Energy-Efficient Design (AGEED). In AGEED, we employ dedicated path protection as backup capacity in order to improve connection availability. Based on iterative routing by modifying link weights, we can make idle network resources be switched into sleep mode, and obtain the energy saving effect. Our simulation results show that AGEED is more advantageous to achieve energy-efficient purpose and guarantee the satisfied connection availability levels in comparison with other methods.

Quantum key distribution (QKD) systems have already reached a reasonable level of maturity. However, a smooth integration and a wide adoption of commercial QKD systems in metropolitan area networks has still remained challenging because of technical and economical obstacles. Mainly the need for dedicated fibers and the strong dependence of the secret key rate on both loss budget and background noise in the quantum channel hinder a practical, flexible and robust implementation of QKD in current and next-generation optical metro networks. In this paper, we discuss these obstacles and present approaches to share existing fiber infrastructures among quantum and classical channels. Particularly, a proposal for a smooth integration of QKD in optical metro networks, which implies removing spurious background photons caused by optical transmitters, amplifiers and nonlinear effects in fibers, is presented and discussed. We determine and characterize impairments on quantum channels caused by many classical telecom channels at practically used power levels coexisting within the same fiber. Extensive experimental results are presented and indicate that a practical integration of QKD in conventional optical metro networks is possible.

This paper introduces a new concept, namely passive optical interconnect at top of the rack in the datacenter networks, and investigates several architectures, which use only passive optical components to interconnect different servers. In such a manner, the proposed schemes are able to offer higher bandwidth and significantly improve energy efficiency compared to their electronic counterpart that is based on commodity switches. The proposed passive optical interconnect schemes are experimentally demonstrated in order to validate the transmission performance. Besides, an assessment in terms of energy consumption and cost has also been carried out, which shows our proposed concept can significantly outperform the conventional commodity switches on energy efficiency while keeping the cost in the similar level.

We propose a universal method for constructing N-port non-blocking optical router for photonic networks-on-chip, in which all microring (MR) optical switches or Mach-Zehnder (M-Z) optical switches behave as 2 × 2 optical switches. The optical router constructed by the proposed method has minimum optical switches, in which the number of the optical switches is reduced about 50% compared to the reported optical routers based on MR optical switches and more than 30% compared to the reported optical routers based on M-Z optical switches, and therefore is more compact in footprint and more power-efficient. We also present a strict mathematical proof of the non-blocking routing of the proposed N-port optical router.

We propose resource orchestration schemes in overlay networks enabled by optical network virtualization. Based on the information from underlying optical networks, our proposed schemes provision the fewest data centers to guarantee K-connect survivability, thus maintaining resource availability for cloud applications under any failure.

To evaluate the cost efficiency of IP over elastic optical network architectures, we use a multi-layer network design scheme that covers network to node equipment level. An evaluation in a static traffic environment shows that the multi-flow optical transponder-based elastic optical network reduces total cost as well as equipment counts compared to other elastic network models based on fixed-rate, mixed-line-rate and bandwidth-variable transponders.

A new optoelectronic serial-to-parallel converter (SPC) has been developed to interface 25-Gbps asynchronous optical packets to CMOS circuitry. Other than all previous optoelectronic SPCs that are limited to single-shot operation and hence that can only be used for packet label processing, the SPC presented here can operate repeatedly with a period of as low as 640 ps to perform 1:16 conversion for an entire burst-mode 25-Gbps optical packet. The new SPC adopts a shared-trigger configuration and hence a single device can either convert a single packet or dual packets simultaneously. In this paper, the design and operation of the new SPC is explained after reviewing the fundamentals of performing bit-by-bit serial-to-parallel conversion by using HEMT-arrays and MSM-PDs. The response of the fabricated SPC device is presented and explained, together with the experimental work done to demonstrate 1:16 dual packet conversion at 25 Gbps.

We propose a novel Optical Network Units (ONU) migration mechanism within the Time and Wavelength Division Multiplexed PON (TWDM-PON) framework by rearranging the working ONUs to a minimum number of wavelengths and turning off the rest to save power. We show through simulation that the number of working wavelengths can be minimized up to a theoretical lower bound, e.g. 23%, under the typical ONU online profiles. We further investigate how the migration interval and delay influence the user Service Level Agreement (SLA). We find that under the example ONU online profiles, 99.99% ONU SLA can be realized with the migration delay of 1000 milli-seconds. However to realize 99.999% ONU SLA, the migration delay must be 100 milli-seconds or lower.

Software defined networking (SDN) and flexible grid optical transport technology are two key technologies that allow network operators to customize their infrastructure based on application requirements and therefore minimizing the extra capital and operational costs required for hosting new applications. In this paper, for the first time we report on design, implementation & demonstration of a novel OpenFlow based SDN unified control plane allowing seamless operation across heterogeneous state-of-the-art optical and packet transport domains. We verify and experimentally evaluate OpenFlow protocol extensions for flexible DWDM grid transport technology along with its integration with fixed DWDM grid and layer-2 packet switching. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America

Load balancing is an attractive technique to achieve maximum throughput and optimal resource utilization in large-scale switching systems. However current electronic load-balanced switches suffer from severe problems in implementation cost, power consumption and scaling. To overcome these problems, in this paper we propose a single-stage optical load-balanced switch architecture based on an arrayed waveguide grating router (AWGR) in conjunction with fast tunable lasers. By reuse of the fast tunable lasers, the switch achieves both functions of load balancing and switching through the AWGR. With this architecture, proof-of-concept experiments have been conducted to investigate the feasibility of the optical load-balanced switch and to examine its physical performance. Compared to three-stage load-balanced switches, the reported switch needs only half of optical devices such as tunable lasers and AWGRs, which can provide a cost-effective solution for future data centers.

Optical flow switching (OFS) has been proposed as a simple and cost-effective transport technology for users with large transactions (>1 second). In previous studies, a fast wavelength reservation method was deployed for flow transmission in OFS-based networks. However, reserving a single wavelength for users with small transactions encounters a very common problem: inefficient wavelength utilization. In this paper, a flow transmission cycle is introduced to each wavelength, and each cycle consists of multiple slots, so that flows of different transactions can be multiplexed onto a single wavelength. It is assumed that inter-metropolitan area network (MAN) traffic is transported over wide area network (WAN). A global time-shift scheduling methodology taking into account propagation delays in MAN is designed to avoid potential contentions occurring among different flows which are carried by the same wavelength in WAN. The contributions of this paper are, first it provides a new OFS network architecture which can achieve better throughput and average wavelength utilization performance without losing the feature of simple transport structure provided by OFS; second, it is the first time that issues of how OFS networks are managed and controlled are addressed from a system point of view.

There is a growing research interest in improving the energy efficiency of communication networks. In order to assess the impact of introducing new energy efficient technologies, an up-to-date estimate for the global electricity consumption in communication networks is needed. In this paper we consider the use phase electricity consumption of telecom operator networks, office networks and customer premises equipment. Our results show that the network electricity consumption is growing fast, at a rate of 10 % per year, and its relative contribution to the total worldwide electricity consumption has increased from 1.3% in 2007 to 1.8% in 2012. We estimate the worldwide electricity consumption of communication networks will exceed 350 TWh in 2012.

A cross-layer network platform may enable introspective access to the physical layer, allowing optical performance monitoring measurements to feedback to higher layers for packet rerouting and protection. We experimentally demonstrate quality-of-service-aware packet protection that leverages cross-layer signaling based on the monitoring of packets' optical-signal-to-noise ratio. In order to detect degraded data streams, the monitoring system is based on a delay-line Mach-Zehnder interferometer and a field-programmable gate array. The system is realized in an experimental cross-layer enabled optical packet switched fabric, measuring the optical-signal-to-noise ratio for 10-Gb/s OOK streams. The packet protection scheme uses the dynamic performance measurements to actuate a rerouting of high-quality-of-service packets. 8 × 10-Gb/s wavelength-striped optical messages are rerouted through the fabric error-free (bit-error rates less than 10(-12)).

In order to solve the differentiated service problem in optical burst switching (OBS) networks, we propose a dynamic fiber delay line (FDL) bank partitioning algorithm, which divides a FDL bank into several groups, using a feed-forward output buffering architecture. In the analysis, three classes and groups are considered for traffic and FDL, respectively, and each group is assigned to each class. This paper shows that the loss differentiation in OBS networks is easily accomplished in Poisson traffic environments when our dynamic algorithm is adopted.

We provide here a new loss model for an optical hybrid switch that can function as an optical burst switch and/or optical circuit switch. Our model is general as it considers an implementation whereby some of the circuits have preemptive priority over bursts and others are allowed to queue their reservations. We first present an analysis based on a 3-dimension state-space Markov chain that provides exact results for the blocking probabilities of bursts and circuits, the proportion of circuits that are delayed and the mean delay of the circuits that are delayed. Because it is difficult to exactly compute the blocking probability in realistic scenarios with a large number of wavelengths, we derive computationally a scalable and accurate approximations based on reducing the 3-dimension state space into a single dimension. These scalable approximations that can produce performance results in a fraction of a second can readily enable switch dimensioning. Extensive numerical results are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and the use of the new approximations.

A high spectral efficiency scheme for all optical label switching (AOLS) network is introduced. The vestigial sideband (VSB) payload with wavelength labeling is proposed in beyond 40Gb/s AOLS networks. Two different label wavelength schemes are considered. The minimum 20dB channel bandwidth of payload and label is 0.40nm in 43Gb/s systems which confirm the payload power penalty less than 1dB at the receiver.

As a promising solution for the next generation optical Internet, optical burst switching still has much to be improved, especially the design of core routers. This paper mainly focuses on channel scheduling algorithms of core routers and proposes a new practical scheduling algorithm. In the new algorithm, burst segmentation, one of the contention resolution schemes that are another major concern in core router design, is introduced. The proposed algorithm is analyzed theoretically and evaluated by computer simulations. The results show that the new algorithm, compared with existing traditional scheduling algorithms, can lower the packet loss probability and enhance the link utilization and network performance.

Data center interconnect with elastic optical network is a promising scenario to meet the high burstiness and high-bandwidth requirements of data center services. In our previous work, we implemented multi-stratum resilience between IP and elastic optical networks that allows to accommodate data center services. In view of this, this study extends to consider the resource integration by breaking the limit of network device, which can enhance the resource utilization. We propose a novel multi-stratum resources integration (MSRI) architecture based on network function virtualization in software defined elastic data center optical interconnect. A resource integrated mapping (RIM) scheme for MSRI is introduced in the proposed architecture. The MSRI can accommodate the data center services with resources integration when the single function or resource is relatively scarce to provision the services, and enhance globally integrated optimization of optical network and application resources. The overall feasibility and efficiency of the proposed architecture are experimentally verified on the control plane of OpenFlow-based enhanced software defined networking (eSDN) testbed. The performance of RIM scheme under heavy traffic load scenario is also quantitatively evaluated based on MSRI architecture in terms of path blocking probability, provisioning latency and resource utilization, compared with other provisioning schemes.

In this paper, we study the service provisioning schemes for dynamic advance reservation (AR) multicast requests in elastic optical networks (EONs). We first propose several algorithms that can handle the service scheduling and routing and spectrum assignment (RSA) of AR multicast requests jointly, including an integrated two-dimensional fragmentation-aware RSA (2D-FMA) that can alleviate the 2D fragmentation caused by light-tree provisioning. Then, we leverage the idea of software-defined EONs (SD-EONs) that utilizes OpenFlow (OF) in the control plane to demonstrate and evaluate the proposed algorithms. Specifically, we build an SD-EON control plane testbed, implement the algorithms in it, and perform control plane experiments on dynamic AR multicast provisioning. The results indicate that 2D-FMA achieves the best blocking performance and provides the shortest average setup delay.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a scheme to improve the energy efficiency of wavelength division multiplexing - orthogonal frequency division multiplexing - passive optical networks (WDM-OFDM-PONs). By using an N × M opto-mechanic switch in optical line terminal (OLT), an OFDM modulation module is shared by several channels to deliver data to multiple users with low traffic demands during non-peak hours of the day, thus greatly reducing the number of operating devices and minimizing the energy consumption of the OLT. An experiment utilizing one OFDM modulation module to serve three optical network units (ONUs) in a WDM-OFDM-PON is performed to verify the feasibility of our proposal. Theoretical analysis and numerical calculation show that the proposed scheme can achieve a saving of 23.6% in the energy consumption of the OFDM modulation modules compared to conventional WDM-OFDM-PON.

This paper proposes a novel scheme to reduce energy consumption of digital transceivers with OFDM as the modulation scheme. The energy consumption of transceivers is saved based on two key techniques: 1) adaptively tune the bandwidth and sampling rate of the OFDM signal; 2) selectively power off individual block of parallel modules in the transceiver. Performance analysis illustrate that the newly designed transceiver consumes a significantly less amount of energy as compared to the conventional transceiver.

Energy-efficient video distribution systems have become an important tool to deal with the rapid growth in Internet video traffic and to maintain the environmental sustainability of the Internet. Due to the limitations in terms of energy-efficiency of the conventional server centric method for delivering video services to the end users, storing video contents closer to the end users could potentially achieve significant improvements in energy-efficiency. Because of dissimilarities in user behavior and limited cache sizes, caching systems should be designed according to the behavior of user communities. In this paper, several energy consumption models are presented to evaluate the energy savings of single-level caching and multi-level caching systems that support varying levels of similarity in user behavior. The results show that single level caching systems can achieve high energy savings for communities with high similarity in user behavior. In contrast, when user behavior is dissimilar, multi-level caching systems should be used to increase the energy efficiency.

We report a novel architecture that can be used to construct optical switch fabrics with very high port count and nanoseconds switching speed. It is well known that optical switch fabrics with very fast switching time and high port count are challenging to realize. Currently, one of the most promising solutions is based on a combination of wavelength-tunable lasers and the arrayed waveguide grating router (AWGR). To scale up the number of ports in such switches, a direct method is to use AWGRs with a high channel count. However, such AWGRs introduce very large crosstalk noise due to the close wavelength channel spacing. In this paper, we propose an architecture for realizing a high-port count optical switch fabric using a combination of low-port count AWGRs, optical ON-OFF gates and WDM couplers. Using this new methodology, we constructed a proof-of concept experiment to demonstrate the feasibility of a 256 x 256 optical switch fabric. To our knowledge, this port count is the highest ever reported for switch fabrics of this type.

An optical packet switch that shares both limited range and full range wavelength converters for contention resolution is proposed with the aim to guarantee a high conversion cost saving. To optimally dimension the number and the conversion range of the wavelength converters, an analytical model, validated by simulation, is introduced. Numerical results show that the proposed switch architecture allows for a conversion cost saving in the order of 90% with respect to a traditional architecture in which only shared full range wavelength converters are used.

In this paper a method is proposed to maximize the bandwidth of the WDM router based on one-pump fiber parametric wavelength converters. It is proved that for such converters there exists an optimum signal (idler) frequency at which the output (input) tuning range can be maximized. Analytical expressions of the optimum frequency and the maximal tuning range are deduced. Then a two-stage bidirectional wavelength conversion method is proposed. With this method the bandwidth of the WDM router based on such a converter can be significantly improved compared to the one-stage ones by 252% if ordinary highly nonlinear fibers are used or 390% if fibers with optimal fourth order dispersion are used.

We provide here a new loss model for an optical hybrid switch that can function as an optical burst switch or optical circuit switch or both simultaneously. We introduce the feature of circuit queued reservation. That is, if a circuit request arrives and cannot find a free wavelength, and if there are not too many requests queued for reservations, it may join a queue and wait until such wavelength becomes available. We first present an analysis based on a 3-dimension state-space Markov chain that provides exact results for the blocking probabilities of bursts and circuits. We also provide results for the proportion of circuits that are delayed and the mean delay of the circuits that are delay. Because it is difficult to exactly compute the blocking probability in realistic scenarios with a large number of wavelengths, we derive computationally scalable and accurate approximations which are based on reducing the 3-dimension state space into a single dimension. These scalable approximations that can produce performance results in a fraction of a second can readily enable switch dimensioning.