Fault Localization and Alarm Correlation in Optical WDM Networks

For several high speed networks, providing resilience against failures is an essential requirement. The main feature for designing next generation optical networks is protecting and restoring high capacity WDM networks from the failures. Quick detection, identification and restoration make networks more strong and consistent even though the failures cannot be avoided. Hence, it is necessary to develop fast, efficient and dependable fault localization or detection mechanisms. In this paper the authors propose a new fault localization algorithm for WDM networks which can identify the location of a failure on a failed lightpath. The algorithm detects the failed connection and then attempts to reroute data stream through an alternate path.