Advanced Optical Networking
Dynamic Optical Networking
With its research partners, iCAIR designs and develops new architecture, services, and technologies related to next-generation networks based on advanced optical technologies, including those based on dynamic lightpath provisioning. iCAIR has established multiple initiatives with these partners to implement these innovations on regional, national, and global prototype and early production networks. New services based on advanced optical networks allow routed packet services complemented by integrated L1 and L2 services. The term "hybrid networks" describes these multi-layer integrated capabilities. The primary facilities and networks advancing innovations in next-generation optical networking are described here. Key issues include the architecture and design for an optimized large-scale, reliable networking infrastructure based on advanced optical networking technology.
New types of architectures envision extremely powerful high-capacity network cores, with complexity and network intelligence extending to the network edge. These directions include migrating from networks based on multiple hierarchical levels to simpler, more flexible designs that allow for faster service provisioning, optimized transit, enhanced reliability, and customization opportunities. These designs incorporate new types of control planes and dynamic, intelligent optical core components, which lead to considerations of an all-optical Internet ("IP-over-Optical") as a complement to L3/L2 services. The continued development of a wide range of powerful new networking technologies based on advanced optics is leading to a major revolution in digital communications. These include new and enhanced components such as Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technologies, optimized fibers, increased numbers of channels per fiber, tunable filters with wider ranges, tunable lasers, amplifiers with better gain capabilities, and capabilities for dynamic switching, such as by using MEMS and other all-optical (O-O-O) devices.
Another part of this research involves new network architectures that allow the control of network core resources to be migrated to intelligent devices, for example, by providing an IP-based control plane for optical resources. The IETF has proposed various methods, including the generalized extension of MPLS or GMPLS and the Software-defined networking communities (SDN).
Initial OMNI research projects demonstrated that metro GE services could be viable provider services. Subsequently, GE has become particularly popular in metro areas because it allows for easy extensions of enterprise networks. Later, other types of metro services based on popular protocols, e.g., ESCON, were incorporated into the project. Another area of investigation has been optical virtual private networks or OVPNs. These capabilities are particularly powerful for creating networks among diverse communities working on common projects, including those at different organizations.
New models for communications infrastructure are based on a wide range of new customer requirements, such as high growth in capacity demand, greater access, new types of services, and customized services. These infrastructures are also being designed and optimized for new types of network and services provisioning, allowing for faster development of new and enhanced services, customer management, including for interlinking sites with new types of communication channels, e.g., "wavelengths," and new techniques for management at any chosen level or combination of levels (e.g., layers 1-7). One goal is allowing instantaneous, "point-and-click" provisioning of network services.
OMNI projects have been undertaken to create new advanced digital communication services enabling a wide range of powerful, advanced applications, including those related to high-performance computational scientific research, especially large-scale computational sites. Underlying discipline-specific applications are cross-cutting support applications, such as high-resolution scientific visualization, remote access to scientific instruments, specialized virtual reality and mixed reality, data mining, and high-performance distributed computation systems. Distributed computational science facilities are cyberinfrastructure used for extremely large-scale data and computationally intensive applications, including networks not for standard communications infrastructure but as backplanes for high-performance computational clusters comprised of hundreds or thousands of individual compute nodes. Applications tested included high-resolution streaming media delivering full-screen, full-color, full-motion medical images to specialists at remote locations in real-time. They also included 3D visualization for industrial design, financially focused large-scale data transfers, data mining for scientific and commercial use, and computational science - data-intensive science for high bandwidth applications.
Photonic TeraStream Services
With its research partners, iCAIR is investigating the potential for enhancing large-scale, high-capacity WAN transport by implementing services (Photonic TeraStream Services) to demonstrate its potential for supporting global applications wavelength-based networking. These services allow applications to directly utilize the optical network control plane and transit selected data flows from L3 to L1 channels. Such “composite” services integrate high-performance data transport protocols, custom-configured DTNs, high-capacity L2switches, and optical transport switches with wavelength provisioning protocols (e.g., Optical Dynamic Intelligent Networking protocol (ODIN).
This research initiative has conducted a series of tests and demonstrations on national and international testbeds to show the utility of such services, including using parallel TCP striping. These demonstrations used Photonic Data Services to set a new high-performance record for trans-national and trans-Atlantic data transport.