Automatic Configuration in Future Semi-Transparent Distributed Optical Networks

The recent commercial development of photonic switches has created many new semi-transparent optical architectures with core nodes made up of an all-optical switch controlled by an IP router. The fact that the nodes are transparent to the switched data complicates the implementation of operations such as interface and link configuration. In this paper, the authors present first an algorithm that allows these semitransparent nodes to be self-configured. The algorithm optimizes the total configuration time by exploiting the capability of optical switches to execute many connections at the same time. Then they present a solution for the link configuration issue that does not require a pre-established control channel between the nodes.