GMPLS-controlled OBS network: a case study for absolute QoS

Over the last decade, the scientific community has thrown itself into assessing Optical Burst Switching (OBS) as the switching technology for next-generation all-optical networks. In this regard, a significant amount of work has concentrated on providing OBS with the required carrier-class features. During this process, however, little attention has been paid to fundamental questions on the interoperability and interworking issues that OBS will have to face in an heterogeneous network scenario such as the future Internet. The present article introduces a Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS)-based control plane architecture for future OBS networks. This GMPLS/OBS control plane solution leverages on the GMPLS interoperability to enable seamless vertical and horizontal OBS integration with different switching layers under a common control plane. In this work, the burst Label Switched Path (b-LSP) entity has been introduced to accomplish such purpose as well as to guarantee end users’ QoS requirements to seamlessly support emerging data applications. Such a b-LSP establishment does not entail explicit resource reservation, but the configuration of new entries in the forwarding tables of OBS nodes with the resources available per b-LSP. Hence, by making a resource available to multiple b-LSPs, the statistical multiplexing nature of OBS is preserved. The required protocol extensions are equally proposed. A Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model is devised to provide the optimal b-LSP dimensioning according to traffic and QoS requirements. Also, GMPLS-driven b-LSP capacity reconfigurations are dynamically triggered whenever unfavorable network conditions are detected. Exhaustive simulations are run to assess the model on different network scenarios. Future work on the topic is finally outlined.