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Integration and full interoperability are challenging areas of research in wide area networks today. A European project, MUPBED, has recently concluded and achieved the main result of integrating and demonstrating technologies and network solutions that enable the operation of future European research infrastructures capable of supporting advanced applications. The achieved results are largely valid for any multidomain network scenario. The test network set up by the project is a prototype multidomain optical network able to provide connectivity on demand services across multiple domains directly driven by the applications. Rather than implementing ex novo a unified control plane and replacing existing equipment, the project approach has been to enable seamless interworking of different control planes by means of ASON/GMPLS and standardized network interfaces. This was done in accomplishment of the project target, which was to test and trial a common migration path toward the future European research network that should be followed by national research and education network operators, together with commercial operators. This article describes the main aspects of the MUPBED experience, which by its own peculiar nature provides deep insight into the most recent evolution of control-plane-enabled optical networking toward multidomain integration. Topics covered by the project and briefly related here include network architecture, applications, protocol and control software development, standardization issues, design, analysis and simulation, testing, measurement, and monitoring.

It is now evident to the research community that local computational resources cannot keep up in an economical way with the demands generated by some users/applications. Therefore, distributed computing and the concept of a computational grid are now emerging. Novel transport network concepts are needed to support such visions, and high-speed intelligent optical networking may be the required infrastructure that will enable global grids. Emerging utility grid applications like business continuity and disaster recovery have strong requirements on the dynamic optical networks connecting the distributed grid resources. Supporting grid networking with an intelligent optical network (ION) infrastructure will allow utility grid applications the necessary flexibility with the required QoS (e.g., high bandwidth, reliability, limited delay). Emerging QoS requirements, such as scalable recovery time, highly depend on the ION's signaling architecture. This article gives simple analytical models for the implementation options of optical control plane signaling, shows simulation models for different resilience strategies, and offers some illustrative numerical comparisons to support the aforementioned efforts. This research area is also discussed, among others, in the European research project Multi-Partner European Testbeds for Research Networking (MUPBED).