Optical Flow Switching with Priority Users

Iyas Khayata

June 8, 2011

Abstract
here goes the abstract

Contents

1 Introduction

2 Enabling Technologies and Architectures for Optical Networks 5

2.1 2.2 Benets of circuit switching for the future optical Internet . . . . Promising optical network architectures 2.2.1 2.2.2 2.2.3 2.2.4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 7 7 12 17 21

Fractional Lambda / Time Driven Switching (F/TDS) . CHEETAH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Optical IP Switching (OIS)

DRAGON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3 Optical Flow Switching

3.1 Topology considerations of OFS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1.1 3.1.2 3.2 WANs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MANs and Distribution Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . .

23
24 24 25 26 28 28 31 33

Inter-MAN OFS Communication 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.2.3 3.2.4

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Scheduling Algorithm Description Model description and analysis Modeling

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Total queuing delay

3.3

Challenges facing Optical Flow Switching (this is probably better at the end of chapter 3) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

4 Two Priority Class on an OFS Network

4.1 4.2 4.3 Enabling Priority Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Analytical Performance Analysis Results Comparison

35
35 36 36

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5 Conclusion
3

37

Introduction

With emerging new applications end users are demanding more bandwidth and less delay from there access network. This bandwidth and delay requirement

have been achieved on backbones network (WAN) through Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM). Unfortunately, these benets have not reach end users due to the lack of architectural innovation in MANs and distributed access networks. Several new promising architectural innovation have been proposed, see section (X.X) for more details. One interesting architecture is Optical Flow Switching which was developed at MIT. Despite of the advancements that have been made in OFS, there is still some key point that need to be studied and researched in order for OFS network to be implemented in real life network. In most networks we have dierent classes of trac  this could represents trac types or users priority  that need to coexists in the network. This lead us to the contribution of this thesis which is implementing two classes of users  Best Eort and Delay Constraint  on an OFS network. thesis overview goes here.

Enabling Technologies and Architectures for Optical Networks

This chapter gives a background on technological and architectural designs of today all-optical networks. The objectives here are: 1) to highlight the importance of circuit switching for the future of the optical Internet; and, 2) to give a survey of the state-of-the-art of current architectures of all-optical networks. As such, we rst give an a short comparison between packet switching and circuit switching in section 2.1, to highlight the importance of the latter. Then in section 2.2, we cover the state-of-the-art on optical networks architecture that enables end users to reserve there own dedicated connection for a certain time  usually, in the order of hundreds of milliseconds . Finally, in section 3.3, we states some of the topics that still need more research and investigation in order for OFS networks to be commercially feasible.

2.1 Benets of circuit switching for the future optical Internet

When the Internet was still in its infancy, P. O'Reilly presented a case for circuit switching in future wide bandwidth networks [4]. Many of the predictions and points that was made in [4] are still relevant today even after 22 years. On

the other hand, the Internet has been dominated by packet switching to take advantage of statistical multiplexing. O'Reilly pointed out the following advantages of circuit switching. Internal network nodes do not need to know about the carried service or QoS requirements. Internal network nodes do not need queues for storing packets; therefore no packet loss due to queues overow as in packet switching. Congestion control is performed at the call level. when a call is admitted, its bandwidth require-

ment is guaranteed for the call duration. The transport mechanism is simple; packet header processing is not needed for each packet, nor a need for a look-up table at each internal network nodes. For real time services, circuit switching has further advantages over packet switching, e.g. synchronization and constant jitter are much easier to achieve by circuit switching. Of course, packet switching has advantages that has lead to the rapid expansion of the Internet in the past 20 years. The most notable advantages are: high link utilization and enabling survivable networks . High link utilization in packet switching networks is achievable through buering and statistical multiplexing. In general, the larger the buers are the more the network links is utilized, but there are other undesired eects some of them are higher delay and jitters. Whereas, survivability of the network could be achieved by dynamic

routing algorithms. Recent trend of new emerging applications that needs some strict requirements, like: HD IPTV that cannot tolerate a variable jitter [NEED REF]; Escience that need to transfer massive amount of data [NEED REF]; and cloud computing that cannot tolerate data loss [NEED REF]; are putting big challenge on the underling packet switching networks (Today Internet). As packet switching network are reaching there peak operation rate; due to electronic maximum rate, there is a simple and elegant solution; it is going back to circuit switching networks. Some of those emerging applications have a variable bit rate (VBR), which lead to under-utilization of network resource in a circuit switching network. But O'Reilly expected negligible transmission cost per bit/km in the

optical age, so accordingly, the benet of packet switching is not as important for those applications, but still important for less strict application; that do not require much capacity, like E-mail, web browsing and Instant Messaging (IM).

1 Survivability refers to the capability of a system to complete its mission in a timely manner, even if signicant portions are compromised by attack or accident.

All of those new trends is forcing us to re-evaluate the role of circuit switching in the future optical Internet. We believe hybrid network that incorporate both types  packet and circuit switching  are more likely to deliver cost-performance trade o eective solutions.

2.2 Promising optical network architectures

2.2.1 Fractional Lambda / Time Driven Switching (F/TDS)
Fractional Lambda Switching (FS) is a promising technology for the realization of energy ecient, low complexity, and high scalability switches. Resource reservation over an FS network need a schedule. As in other Scheduling based technologies, even if there is enough capacity in the network a call may be blocked due to unavailable schedule time. Despite the similarities between FS and Circuit Switching like SONET/SDH, its core principle is fundamentally different because it is based on Universal Coordinated Time (UTC). This principle is called pipeline forwarding, which uses UTC to control the forwarding of data units in the network. FS dynamically switches fraction of a

in a heteroge-

neous meshed networking environment. This meshed environment can contains a mix of high speed links and low speed links. When an access network need a specic bandwidth it dynamically reserves a Fractional represents a fraction of a

pipe (F P)  which

 with the proper needed capacity.

Those FPs

can transport data packets; e.g., IP, MPLS, Frame Relay, ATM, Ethernet, or even SONET/SDH frames. For implementing pipeline forwarding inside the

network a global common time reference (CTR) is needed. CTR can be realized using UTC which provides phase synchronization with identical frequencies everywhere. The basic switching and forwarding units in FS are called time frames (TFs). TFs are obtained by dividing the UTC second by a predened set of

Figure 1: the common time reference (CTR)

numbers. Therefore, in dierent parts of the network TFs may have dierent durations  normally between

Tf

= 5

and

Tf

= 125

. The scheduling of

an FP is made by reserving switching and transmission capacity along a path during a set of TFs. The FP is blocked if there is no feasible schedule even if the capacity is available. In [5], the authors showed that the blocking probability is not signicant, even when a blocking switching fabric is used (e.g. a Banyan network). Time in FS is divided as follows: are grouped into a time cycle and

contiguous TFs of duration

Tf

contiguous time cycles are grouped into a

super cycle. A super cycle typically is equal to one UTC second. See Figure 1 on page 8. As mention in previous section, pipeline forwarding uses global CTR to forward data packets. Every predened integer number of TFs, data units are forwarded one hop through the FS network. The delay experienced by data units is equal to a predened integer number of TFs. This delay is deterministic and achievable by imposing that the delay between an input node port and the next input node port is equal to the predened integer number of TFs.

This delay include switching and propagation time. There are two ways of unit forwarding; rst, immediate forwarding where data units for a given connection received in

T F (s)

are sent out in

T F (s + 1)

through their output port. This

way ensure minimum delay, and second, non-immediate forwarding where data units for a given connection received in

T F (s)

are sent out in

T F (s + kc )

where

(kc > 1)

through their output port. This way exible scheduling is enabled by

the selection of the value of

kc

and results in lower blocking probability. If

kc

is equal to the time cycle there is no blocking, because it is always possible to nd a schedule at the cost of longer delay. It is important to note that, the

maximum jitter a data unit can suer is equal to one As explained before, the switching unit used in

Tf

in a FS network.

F S

networks is a

TF.

The

TFs

have a xed size and are aligned to the UTC at the switches output links.

This characteristic enables simpler switching control and higher switching fabric utilization Figure 2 on page 10. Where at the same time provides independency from the switching technology used and independency from the data unit format that is being sent through a

F S

network. Even that all

TFs

on the output

links are aligned to the UTC, the arriving data units across all the input links at a fractional

switch will probably be not aligned to the UTC. And the reason

is that the propagation delay across all input links of a fractional most likely not be equal to a multiple integer number of

switch will

TF

duration. Therefore,

TFs

at the input ports need to be aligned to the CTR. This alignment can be

done using an alignment system as shown in Figure 3 on page 11. Figure 4 on page 11, shows how

F S

networks can accommodate dierent

transport protocols while maintaining a deterministic bandwidth provisioning with no loss and a small constant jitter. The authors in [5] shows that, the that are realized in

F P s

F S

network have the same deterministic characteristics as

leased lines in SONET and circuit emulation in ATM with several advantages:

Figure 2: Fractional

switch architecture and operating stages

10

Figure 3: Alignment System

Figure 4: convergence to an all-packet network with

F S

11

IP/MPLS packets are transferred through a change.

F S

network with no format

simple aggregation or grooming in the time domain is possible.

IP/MPLS header processing is performed only at the edges.

and

F S

is suitable for all-optical switching [6].

2.2.2 CHEETAH
Circuit-switched High-speed End-to-End Transport ArcHitecture (CHEETAH) is a service concept that provide end users with high speed end-to-end circuit connectivity on a call-by-call basis. Because of the dominance of Eth-

ernet in LANs and SONET/SDH in MANs and WANs, CHEETAH circuit are formed from Ethernet segments at the end users and mapped into Ethernet-overSONET (EoS) for long distance circuit. In [7], the authors introduce CHEETAH as an add on to the primary Internet access service for le-transfer application. This gives end users two alternative ways for sending les. First, the end host attempt setting up an end-to-end Ethernet/EoS circuit, and if rejected, fall back to the traditional TCP/IP network path. Recent technological advances have made the implementation of CHEETAH quite feasible. These technologies include (1) deployment of Multi-Service Provisioning Platforms (MSPPs), (2) deployment of optical ber to enterprises, and (3) the addition of Ethernet over SONET (EoS) capabilities in MSPPs. the goal of CHEETAH service is to realize fast le transfer on intra-network paths through, high speed, optical circuit switched networks. In order to implement CHEETAH service several changes at dierent network places are needed. These changes are describe in the following sections and includes, equipment needed to support CHEETAH service, discovery support service, hardware-accelerated signaling implementations, routing decision and transport protocol.

12

Figure 5: CHEETAH architecture

Equipment

For an end host to be able to access CHEETAH service, it

need to be equipt with a second high speed Ethernet NICs and this NICs should be directly connected to the MSPP Ethernet cards Figure 5 on page 13. These MSPPs and WAN switches like SONET,SDH,WDM as well as ADMs should be capable of processing signaling protocols to be able of handling dynamic call setup and release. Another end host change, is at the application layer where software need to know how to interface with CHEETAH service.

Optical Connectivity Service (OCS)

Optical Connectivity Service is

a support service that has been proposed in [7] to address the problem of discovering if an end host has access to CHEETAH service. Let's consider host A, that has access to CHEETAH service and possess all necessary equipment. Host A want to send some data to Host B. Now host A would like to use CHEETAH service to enjoy a much faster transfer but doesn't know if host B has access

13

to CHEETAH service. The proposed solution for OCS is to implement it much like a Domain Name Service (DNS). Were end hosts would query OCS servers for information about the desired destination host (e.g. about host B). host A would query

Hardware acceleration of signaling protocol implementations

In

CHEETAH, the end-to-end Ethernet/EoS circuit are reserved for the actual le transfer. For achieving high utilization of the circuit-switched network, the authors in [7] proposed, (1) setting up the circuit just prior to the actual le transfer and releasing it instantly after it, (2) the circuit switched network is operated in a call blocking mode, (3) circuit are used only for certain transfers, and (4) the circuit is unidirectional. The holding time of the circuit is equal to just the le transfer which can be quite small. For example, a 1 MB transfer on a 100Mb/s link would only take 80 ms as transmission delay. which impose strict constrains on the call setup delay and call handling capacities of the switches. As a result, it is recommended to use a hardware accelerated signaling protocols. In [16], the authors have implemented their own signaling protocol based on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). It has been designed specically for SONET networks and with the goal of achieving high performance instead of exibility. The protocol has been split into to sets of operations (1) basic and frequent operations, (2) complex and infrequent operations. The rst set include four operations: Setup, Setup-success, Release and Release-conrm. And has been implemented on an FPGA board. While the other set handles processing of optional parameters and error handling, and has been assigned to software. Timing simulations shows that call setup message processing time is between 3.08-4

s.

14

Routing decision
to the exiting Internet.

CHEETAH has been proposed as an add-on service Thus, this circuit switched network is operated on As describe

the simple call blocking mode instead of the call queuing mode.

earlier, the user can always fall back to the traditional TCP/IP network if the call request for an Ethernet/EoS circuit is blocked. Another important aspect, is that it's not appropriate to setup a circuit for small size les (order of few KB), because the delay for setting up the circuit then transmitting the le could be larger than the conventional TCP/IP network. So a routing decision is important to determine whether or not to attempt setting up an Ethernet/EoS circuit. The expression of the mean delay incurred if an Ethernet/EoS circuit setup is attempted

E[Tcheetah ]

is obtained from the model of [7],

E[Tcheetah ] = (1 Pb )(E[Tsetup ] + Ttransf er ) + Pb (E[Tf ail ] + E[Ttcp ])

where

Pb

is the call blocking probability on the circuit switched network,

E[Tsetup ]

is the mean call-setup delay of a successful circuit setup,

Ttransf er

is

the time to transfer the le on the Ethernet/EoS circuit, delay incurred in a failed call setup attempt,

E[Tf ail ]

is the mean

E[Ttcp ]

is the mean delay incurred

in sending the le on the TCP/IP path. The routing decision is obtained by comparing the

E[Tcheetah ] E[Ttcp ]:

(with the approximation of

E[Tf ail ]

to be equal to

E[Tsetup ])

with

if

E[Tsetup ] 1Pb

(E[Ttcp ] Ttransf er ))

resort directly to the TCP/IP path.

if

E[Tsetup ] 1Pb

< (E[Ttcp ] Ttransf er ))

attempt circuit setup.

15

In order for the end host to be able to perform these calculations, it needs to determine some values like RTTs,

Pb , Ploss and link rate.

Three ways were shown

in [7], (1) dynamically obtained, (2) having network management stations or (3) static values. Dynamically obtained approach could lead to a complex algorithm at the end hosts. while RTT can be easily obtained during the TCP connection establishment handshake, other values are harder to estimate. Having network management stations that keep track of these values and respond to users queries seems to be the balance between complexity and performance. On the other

hand, having static values based on nominal operating conditions of the two networks would simplify the routing decision algorithm.

Transport protocol used over the Ethernet/EoS circuit

is an ANSI standard [8].

The trans-

port protocol that was selected is the Scheduled Transfer (ST) protocol, which This protocol provides sucient functions that are

ideally suited for CHEETAH network; (1) It is a high-speed transport protocol, (2) OS-bypass implementation and (3) suited for end-to-end circuits carrying Ethernet frames. The OS-bypass is implemented by having the sender specify a receiver memory address, which allow the receiving NIC to directly write the received data using Direct Memory Access (DMA). This lead to a lower delay in the end hosts transport layer, which is necessary to achieve high-speed endto-end throughput. For the ow control, two approach have been proposed, (1) using a rate control that is selected taking into consideration the speed of the receiving application can process data from the memory, (2) is for the receiver to allocate an enough buer space for the entire le before the transfer. This will limits the maximum le transfer size per session, which is anyway desire from a network circuit sharing perspective. For the error control, the suggested way is to use ST's support for the negative acknowledgments (NAKs). The selective repeat approach is leveraged from ST support and erroneous blocks will

16

need to be retransmitted. For the reverse path control messages, that the ST needs, a TCP connection is set up using the primary NIC. As a conclusion, the transport solution is a combination of ST on the Ethernet/EoS in conjunction with the TCP/IP path.

2.2.3 Optical IP Switching (OIS)

Optical IP Switching is a hybrid electro-optical routing architecture, that create dynamically optical paths and redirect part of the electronic IP trac load to the optical layer. This process is realized by combining a transparent optical crossconnect with an enhanced electronic router. OIS was presented by Marco Runi in his PhD Thesis at the University of Dublin [9]. The idea behind OIS was that of an IP network that can adapts the physical topology to the trac pattern seen at the IP layer. IP trac is switched at the packet level where each packet is in the order of few Kbyte in size. However, in wavelength switching, data is switched at the channel rate which is in the order of few Gbps. OIS address this large gap in granularity by (1) reorganizing the packets in IP ows where each ow size reach between hundreds of Kbps and few Mbps and (2) aggregating ows that share a common route into the same dedicated optical cut-through paths. Those two operation, brings the granularity gap down to about one

order of magnitude between the packet and wavelength switched domains. In OIS, optical cut-through paths are created and deleted in a distributed fashion and based on local trac analysis. This distributed approach gives IOS the

following advantages (1) architecture scalability, (2) fault tolerant design and (3) very useful in the interdomain, where each network has its own policies to make decisions. Each OIS node is autonomous in its operation, in the sense,

that it evaluate the convenience of switching or routing a ow aggregate, based on its available local electrical and optical resources. The functional diagram Figure 6 on page 18 illustrates the steps of the algorithm that each IOS node

17

Figure 6: Functional diagram of Optical IP Switching

performs. The steps consists of (1) Trac analysis and classication, (2) Optical path creation, (3) Optical path extension and (4) Optical path cancellation. The following sections describe briey each step for more detail refer to [9].

Trac analysis and classication

Trac analysis is the rst step of

the OIS switching process. Each OIS node constantly monitors the IP trac that is transiting the router. This monitoring is facilitated by packet sampling mechanisms [need ref]. The needed information to be collected includes: the

packet input interface, the output interface, the payload size, and the time of arrival of the packet. The second step is the classication of the trac which will aect the decision of the creation (or deletion) of optical cut-through paths.

18

Figure 7: OIS prex-based aggregation matrix

At this stage an aggregation matrix Figure 7 on page 19 is build with the number of columns and rows equal to the number of upstream and downstream neighbors, respectively. Each generic matrix cell (i,j) stores information about the trac incoming from interface i that is transmitted through interface j. The employed classication is called Prex-based aggregation, where packets are grouped based on the destination IP prex.

Optical path creation

After the trac information collecting stage, a At this time the router analyzes the

decision stage starts at each IOS node.

gathered information by adding the amount of data carried by the dierent IP prexes within each cell. From this addition, cells that the aggregation data

is above a pre-established path creation threshold are eligible for Optical IP Switching. From those cells, the node starts trying to create optical cut-through paths starting with the highest value. The signaling process is initiated from the middle router requesting its upstream and downstream neighbors the creation of a new optical cut-through path. If positive acknowledgments are received

from both neighbors, the middle node sends the list of prexes to be switched through this transparent path to the upstream node. The latter updates its

19

Figure 8: Path creation process

routing table accordingly and starts injecting matching packets into the cutthrough path Figure 8 on page 20.

Optical path extension

Any newly generated path only involve three

nodes: source, middle (transparent switching node) and destination, because it's based on local provisioning decisions - at the middle node -. Optical path extension is also based on local analysis at the source or destination nodes of any already created cut-through path. Those nodes can only extend the

path by one hop. The source can extend in the upstream direction, similarly the destination can extend in the downstream direction. The extension will

result in less data been transparently switched through the extended path, by selecting a subset of its switched prexes. The remaining data is routed back to the original IP links. The signaling is similar to the path creation, the node that has decided that extension is appropriate will inform the other concern node with the updated list of prexes. Two extension algorithms have been

proposed: Absolute threshold algorithm and Relative threshold algorithm. For further detail on those extension algorithms refer to [3.4.1 from [9]].

20

Optical path cancellation

Variation in the trac pattern change the

quantity of data that is destined towards the prexes switched on the optical cutthrough paths. This variation can lead to a decreasing in the channel eciency under an acceptable level. For that reason existing cut-through paths are deleted for the purpose of freeing resources like wavelength channels, optical ports and interfaces that have become under-used. The same information stored in the

aggregation matrix is used by The path cancellation process. At the decision time the node checks the cells that correspond to interfaces that are being used by existing cut-through paths. If any of those cells data values is below a preestablished path cancellation threshold the corresponding cut-through path is deleted and the optically switched trac returns to the original IP hop-by-hop path. Its important to point that path cancellation threshold needs to be lower than the path creation and extension thresholds. Any of these threshold can be dynamically ne tuned to optimize the resources usage between the IP domain and Optical domain.

2.2.4 DRAGON
The Dynamic Resource Allocation via GMPLS Optical Networks (DRAGON) [need ref] project is about developing high-performance networks needed for grid computing and e-science applications. DRAGON allows dynamic provisioning of network resources in response to end user requests in heterogeneous networks and across multiple domains Figure 9 on page 22. The principal feature of

DRAGON architecture is that it provides end users with deterministic network resources to their demands. The main component of DRAGON is the NetworkAware Resource Broker (NARB), which represents the local autonomous system (AS) and is responsible for path computation. End users query the NARB about the availability of the trac engineered paths between source and destination pairs. If the requested path is spread across multiple domains the signaling is

21

Figure 9: DRAGON control plane architecture

regulated by the NARB. If the path belong to the same domain, a peer to peer approach is used for the signaling of the path creation. The NARB include

advanced path computation algorithms with multiple constraints. Based on operational constraints and policy, each path computation has a degree of delity that can be determined at the provision time. Another feature of the DRAGON design, is abstract topology representations which has two benets (1) allowing administrative domains to hide their internal topology to the external world and (2) minimizing the size of external updated required. DRAGON enables

an interesting option for establishing Application-Specic Topologies (ASTs). End users that wish to set up a group (an application domain) send a request, usually composed of a set of LSPs, to the Application-Specic Topology Builder (ASTB). The latter uses the NARB to determine if the requested network paths are available.

22

Optical Flow Switching

Optical Flow Switching, appeared in the literature as a high level concept in the Journal Of Lightwave Technology in 1998 [10]. But it was just until recently that the proof-of-concept and detailed architecture analysis has started. In [2], G. Weichenberg addresses some key issues related to OFS, broadly speaking, those issues are about (1) the implementation of OFS, (2) the performance of OFS, and (3) the economic properties of OFS. Another interesting analysis was conducted by B. Ganguly in [11], his work investigated the throughput delayperformance on an OFS test bed using a scheduling approach. And in [12], A. Ganguly reports on a specic type of OFS network that is aimed for critical defense applications, where in those applications ows scheduling requires a strict time delay. To achieve this constrain fast probing techniques [need ref] were used to check the availability of network resources. OFS uses the complementary capabilities of both electronics and optics to oer end users cost eective access to core network bandwidth. The design of OFS address the lag of advancement in the MAN and access network to provide end hosts with large bandwidth demands a way to dynamically request and establish end to end optical circuit. This service is motivated by the signicant low cost of transmitted bit at the core network level, that was made possible by technological and architectural advancement in the WAN. Because of the relatively complex network management and the cost of end user necessary equipments to set an end-to-end optical connection, it is only benecial to use OFS to serve large bandwidth demands while comparatively small bandwidth demands are more eciently served by architecture like EPS, MPLS or GMPLS. Transactions in OFS network are served as indivisible entities, in the aim of reducing network management and switch complexity in the network core. As network link rates and the number of input/output ports in modern EPS routers

23

are increasing, queuing subsystems in them are becoming the major bottleneck in today's networks [13]. Therefore, core nodes in OFS are envisaged to be

equipped with buerless OXC. Optical Flow Switching is a unied network architecture which spans LANs, MANs and WANs. This network is primarily designed to serve large bandwidth transactions (ideally a whole wavelength

).

The motivation behind OFS is

to give end users access to the vast core network (WAN) bandwidth in a cost eective way. End users will request a call setup from a scheduling node -

scheduling nodes are discussed later - that in turn will reserve an end to end path based on available network resources.

3.1 Topology considerations of OFS

This Section is divided into to Subsections: Distribution Networks. (1) WANs and (2) MANs and

3.1.1 WANs
WANs connect dierent types of networks (i.e. MANs) that are spanned across long distances that reaches thousands of kilometers. Because of those long-

haul links, optical signals degradation is signicant, expensive equipments are required (i.e. optical ampliers, regenerators and dispersion compensation).

Due to this high transportation cost, the main goal in designing and architecting WANs is to achieve high utilization of the available bandwidth. In the designing phase, the optimal physical network topology is still an open question. However, the more important issues are on higher network layers that deal with resource provisioning and access. These issues have been

addressed in [14] and topology case studies have been conducted on two important classes of network topologies: Bidirectional Rings and Moore Graphs.

24

Figure 10: end to end circuit illustration in an OFS network

3.1.2 MANs and Distribution Networks

As mention before, WAN bandwidth capacity is a precious resource so it is desirable to try to maintain a quasi-static trac behavior. Which is achievable through, the primary role of the MANs portion in an OFS network. Where this role is to perform aggregation and disaggregation of the bursty trac generated at the distribution networks. And those distribution networks - which are also called Access network - in turns connect the end users to the MAN. Usually, a distribution network consists of several hundreds end-user and can be viewed as an internet service provider. In the MAN region, the network topology is based on Moore graph (Petersen graph) for a number of reasons which include: a) economically viable deployment of OFS; and b) a strong coupling between the MAN and WAN areas in OFS architecture. The motive for choosing the family of Moore graphs is that they lead to cost eective MAN architectures [15]. Where usually MANs physical

25

topology are mesh networks, it is assumed, each MAN has an embedded regular tree topology and is connected to the WAN by the root node of this tree. Trac generated by end users that is destined to a dierent MAN end users is carried on this embedded tree, while trac destined for another user of the same MAN is carried on links (bers) that reside outside the embedded tree. Each MAN node is equipped with an Optical cross connect (OXC) with direct connections to adjacent MAN nodes in addition to one or several access networks based upon optical (Distribution Network) DN architectures. In practice, the MAN nodes are connected by bidirectional links using two optical bers in opposite directions. Passive networking components (e.g., PSCs, taps) and broadcast

architectures, coupled with scheduling or reservation, are employed in the access network for down-link and up-link communications. However, MAN nodes can tolerate more expensive recongurable OXCs owing to the large number of supported end users.

3.2 Inter-MAN OFS Communication

In [1], the authors developed a scheduling algorithm that arbitrates the access to resources in an OFS network. They considered that wavelength channels are a precious resource in WAN so they should be used eciently and assumed that trac in the WAN is suciently heavy and smooth that a quasi-static logical topology is reasonable. End users request an end to end optical connection from their respective scheduling nodes that are located at the MAN-WAN interface. Due to the

unied OFS architecture, a scheduling algorithm ideally should consider all available resources from three dierent network tiers (WANs, MANs and LANs) to make the optimal decision. Unfortunately, such an algorithm is not feasible because of the large size of the optimization problem. Hence, the sequential

26

Figure 11: a MAN example in an OFS network

27

approach proposed in [2] seems suitable for this kind of problem and is explained in the following section.

3.2.1 Scheduling Algorithm Description

The end to end optical reservation process is divided into two sequential reservations, rst, wavelength channels in the MAN and WAN are reserved, then second, two simultaneous but separate reservations for the DN wavelength channels at the source and destination DN are sent. To illustrate the scheduling mechanism, let's look at the steps [gure illustrating the steps] of the process by which an end user establishes an end to end optical path. in Suppose user

want to create a ow to user and

D, S

is residing

DNS

which in turn lies in

M ANS

is residing in

DND

which in turn

lies in

M AND . S

sends a primary request

rp

(step 1 in Figure 12 on page

29) to the scheduling node

NS

associated with

M ANS . NS

is responsible to

reserve the needed resource between

DNS

and

DND .

Once this reservation is

made, two simultaneous secondary requests are sent to

DNS

and

DND

(step 2

in Figure 12 on page 29). Each secondary request is responsible for reserving the resource between

DNS

and end user

S, ND

as well as

DND

and end user

D.

When this reservation is made, with

NS

and

(the scheduling nodes associated

M ANS

and

M AND

respectively) are notied and the ow transmission

begins. Network resources are freed after the ow transmission is complete.

3.2.2 Model description and analysis

As stated earlier, the MAN topology in an OFS network is based on Moore graphs, because they lead to cost-eective MAN architectures. The root of

the tree is the interface between the MAN and WAN. Each OFS MAN node comprise an OXC with direct connections to adjacent MAN nodes and one or more access networks based on optical distribution network (DN) architectures.

28

Figure 12: Scheduling and resource reservation

Under normal operating conditions, inter-MAN trac is carried on the links of the embedded tree, whereas the intra-MAN trac is only carried on the links outside the embedded tree. This network model consists of a single WAN that connects

nw

MANs where

each of them has an embedded tree topology, all employing OFS technology. Each MAN is connected to the WAN by the root tree node (see Figure 11 on page 27) and this node, also called scheduling node, represents the MANWAN interface. The scheduling node is connected to the WAN by

bers

for each direction.

These bers carry OFS inter-MAN trac, and, may also

carry other transport mechanisms. MAN wavelength channels are partitioned into two groups: a) the rst group, consisting of

win

wavelength channels, is

responsible for intra-MAN communications; and b) the second group, consisting of

wout

wavelength channels, is responsible for inter-MAN communications. The

scheduling algorithm satisfy the trade-o between the precious WAN wavelength

29

channels utilization eciently and the QoS required by end user ows. To achieve this goal in a computationally permissible manner, a dedicated wavelength channel is required in each link of the source and destination MANs, for each WAN provisioned wavelength channel. wavelength channels in the MAN and its DNs, To avoid contention between bers (f for each direction) are

2f

needed in the embedded tree to carry inter-MAN trac. These

2f

bers provide

a preferred one-to-one correspondence between MAN nodes and WAN. Lastly, each DN is connected by two bers to its parent MAN node. In this study, we assume that trac is uniformly distributed between any two MANs. This leads to the following equation describing the maximum number of wavelengths for each inter-MAN communication:

wm = f.wout /nw 1
where :

wm

: number of wavelength channels on which each MAN communicates

with every other MAN(provisioned wavelength channel).

: number of bers that connect the root node to the rest of the WAN.

wout

number of wavelength channels on each ber (in the embedded

tree) that are allocated to inter-MAN communication.

nw

: number of MANs that belong to the same WAN.

The value of

wm

depends on the eciency of wavelength reuse achieved by the

routing and wavelength assignment in the WAN. Also, we consider that DN trac demands are uniformly distributed. The trac arriving at a particular destination MAN is assumed to be a Poisson process with rate

m .

This assumption is based on the fact that

is the

aggregation of the generated trac by end users, where the latter is modeled

30

by independent, identical and stationary point processes. This aggregation is known to converge to a Poisson process [3].

3.2.3 Modeling
Each scheduling node

N , has nw 1 rst-in rst-out (FIFO) queues, where each

queue corresponds to another MAN in the same WAN and each of them can be modeled by an

M/G/wm

queuing system, assuming

wm

wavelength channels

are reserved for the transmission of data between the two MANs. In order to evaluate the performance of the OFS network, we need to obtain a solution for the

M/G/wm

queue, where unfortunately, no exact solution has yet been

found. One method to resolve this

M/G/wm

system consists of using a close

approximation. In this study, we have used an proximation under a normalized trac load

M/G/1

queuing system as apThis approximation

n = m /wm .

tend to be more accurate under high to medium network loads. When the primary request reaches the head of the primary queue, two secondary requests are generated and sent to two other FIFO queues, also called secondary queue (as shown in 13). These secondary queues hold requests contending for the same wavelength channel connecting the related DN to the end users. Moreover, secondary queues are serving the requesting using FIFO discipline, and have at most

f 1

requests waiting in the queue for a specic wavelength. The service

time for the primary request, denoted byX , depends on two values: a) the ow transmission length, denoted by

L;

and b) the waiting time of the secondary

requests in the secondary queue, denoted by

Y.

Therefore X is expressed as:

X =L+Y
and its second moment:

(1)

31

Figure 13: Queuing system illustration

X 2 = (L + Y )2

(2)

Secondary queue modeling

In order to get

Y , we need to analyze the secondary queue.

The probability that

a primary request generates a secondary request to one of the secondary queues is

1/nDN , where nDN

is the total number of DNs in a MAN, assuming ows are

equally likely to be generated at (or destined to) each of the DNs in a MAN. This leads to a generated rate equal to

n /nDN

at each of the

contending

primary queues and aggregated arrival rate at each of the secondary queues of

f n /nDN .

As

and

nDN

get proportionately large, corresponding to a large

WAN and large MAN respectively, the arrival process at the secondary queue converges to a Poisson process [3]. Therefore, by modeling the arrival process of a secondary queue as a Poisson process and applying Pollaczek-Khinchin (P-K) formula, lower bounds for

and its second moment

Y2

can be obtained as:

32

Y > Yl =

f n L2 2(nDN f n L) f n L3 3(nDN f n L)

(3)

Y 2 > Yl2 = 2Yl +

(4)

3.2.4 Total queuing delay

After calculating the approximations for the rst and second moments of

and

Y,

we can now calculate the total queuing delay seen by a transaction. In order

to get the total queuing delay, we need to apply the P-K formula again but this time on the primary FIFO queue with an additional term

(Y ).

This term reects

the delay a primary request suers while waiting for the secondary request to be processed (the waiting time of the secondary requests in the secondary queue). Therefore the total queuing delay is given by:

W =Y +
with a stability condition

n X 2 2(1 n X)

(5)

n X < 1.

Substituting 3 in 5 we get:

f n L2 n X 2 + 2(nDN f n L) 2(1 n X)

(6)

Together equations 1,2 and 6 will be used in our analytical performance analysis and compare to simulation results, later in the thesis[REF].

3.3 Challenges facing Optical Flow Switching (this is probably better at the end of chapter 3)
still to be done:

priority users

33

trac aggregation

multi-tiers and multi-domain interconnected networks (policies and connections between them).

I'm here ->>>>>>>>>>>>>>

34

Two Priority Class on an OFS Network

4.1 Enabling Priority Class

In the previous section we saw a performance analysis of the primary queues, in those queues the service discipline was FIFO. Unfortunately this discipline can not enable service dierentiation between setup requests. In this section we describe a priority queue discipline that will enable two type of requests, and

RBE RDC RDC

RDC

 Best Eort request and Delay Constrain request, respectively.

have a high priority over the low priority

RBE .

In other words, when an

request arrive at the primary queue it will preempt any

RBE

request already in

the queue see Figure 14. It is important to mention that the preemptive eect does not include the request that is been served at the time, because we believed this will lead to unnecessary additional setup delay times.

Figure 14: Priority queue with two types of request.

Priority queue modeling

As mention before, we have two dierent priorities

RDC

and

RBE .

Lets as-

sume,These requests arrives to the primary queue by dierent Poisson distributions

DC

and

BE

 corresponding to

RDC

and

RBE

 respectively. Conse. Within

quently, the combined input is Poisson with parameter

= DC +BE

each priority the requests are served in a FIFO discipline. service-time distribution

The cumulative-

F (t) = (1/).(DC .FDC (t)+BE .FBE (t)) , where F (t) 1/.

is an arbitrary cumulative-service-time distribution with mean service time XXxXXXXXXXXX

35

4.2 Analytical Performance Analysis 4.3 Results Comparison

36

Conclusion

37

References
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[2] G. Weichenberg,  Design and analysis of optical ow switched networks, Ph.D. Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 2009.

[3] D. J. Daley and D. Vere-Jones, An Introduction to the Theory of Point Processes. New York, USA: Springer-Verlag, 1988.

[4] P. O'Reilly, The case for circuit switching in future wide bandwidth networks, in Proc. IEEE ICC' 88, vol. 2, pp. 899-904,

Philadelphia, PA, USA, June 1988.

[5] M. Baldi and Y. Ofek, "Fractional Lambda Switching - Principles of Operation and Performance Issues", SIMULATION: Transactions of The Society for Modeling and Simulation International, Vol. 80, No. 10, Oct. 2004.

[6] M. Baldi, Y. Ofek, Realizing Dynamic Optical Networking, Optical Networks Magazine, Special Issue Dynamic Optical Networking: around the Corner or Light Years Away?, September 2003.

[7] M. Veeraraghavan, X. Zheng, H. Lee, M. Gardner, W. Feng, CHEETAH: circuit-switched high-speed end-to-end transport architecture, in: Proceedings of the Opticomm 2003, Dallas, TX,

1317 October 2003.

[8] ANSI,

Information

Technology

Schedule

Transfer

Protocol

(ST), T11.1/Proj. 1245-M/Rev 4.0, Oct. 2000.

38

[9] Marco Runi. Optical IP Switching, Computer Science Department, University of Dublin, Trinity College, 2008.

[10] Chan, V.W.S.; Hall, K.L.; Modiano, E.; Rauschenbach, K.A.; , "Architectures and technologies for high-speed optical data networks ," Lightwave Technology, Journal of , vol.16, no.12, pp.21462168, Dec 1998

[11] B. Ganguly, Implementation and modeling of a scheduled Optical Flow Switching (OFS) network, Ph.D. Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2008.

[12] A. R. Ganguly, Optical Flow Switching with Time Deadlines for High-Performance Applications, S.M. Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009.

[13] S. Kumar, J. Turner, and P. Crowley, Addressing queuing bottlenecks at high speeds, Proceedings of Symposium on High Performance Interconnects, pp.209-224, 2005.

[14] Weichenberg, G.; Chan, V.W.S.; Medard, M.; , "On the capacity of optical networks: A framework for comparing dierent transport architectures," Selected Areas in Communications, IEEE Journal
on, vol.25, no.6, pp.84-101, August 2007

[15] C. Guan, "Cost-eective optical network architecture - a joint optimization of topology, switching, routing and wavelength assignment," Ph.D. Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007.

39

[16] H. Wang, M. Veeraraghavan and R. Karri,A hardware implementation of a signaling protocol, Proc. of Opticomm 2002, July 29Aug. 2, 2002, Boston, MA.

[17]

40