IP Control of Optical Networks, and GMPLS
Jennifer Yates and Albert Greenberg, AT&T Labs- Research
(Day 1 - Half Day)Content
Advances in optical networking hardware, particularly optical cross-connects, promise huge, rapidly configurable bandwidth - enabling rapid provisioning, and rapid, cost-effective restoration. The challenge is to manage the bandwidth - i.e., to design a scalable, inter-operable control plane for addressing and routing (intra-domain and inter-domain), topology and resource discovery, provisioning and restoration, and management of optical resources and lightpaths. In this tutorial, we will cover these control plane topics and more, focusing on mechanisms and protocols derived from IP counterparts, and importantly, what networking people need to know about optical transport to contribute to this rapidly evolving area.
This tutorial is a broad introduction to IP control of Optics and the developing Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS) specifications. The first part of the tutorial will provide a detailed description of the GMPLS architecture and the protocols and mechanisms defined. In particular, the tutorial will examine the properties and requirements of optical networks and compare them to the properties and requirements of packet networks. The tutorial will also examine the impact that these different properties and needs have on the design of the GMPLS architecture and protocols. A particular emphasis will be placed on the control plane and protocols/mechanisms used for rapid protection and restoration. The second part of the tutorial will also discuss work and competing ideas related to how transport networks might best be designed to support IP, including supporting IP over a rapidly reconfigurable optical network.
Intended audience
This tutorial is intended for networking researchers with a basic knowledge of IP protocols and who are interested in optical networking, GMPLS and integration of IP control and optics. The audience will not be expected to have any prior knowledge of GMPLS or optical networks.
About the Speakers
JENNIFER YATES is a member of the IP Network Management and Performance Dept. at AT&T Labs - Research. She has been focusing on issues relating to IP control of optical networks. She is a co-author on numerous papers on using IP to manage optical networks and rapid shared mesh restoration. She is also extensively involved in the development of a prototype GMPLS implementation, which the AT&T team has used for debugging protocols, and demonstrating performance capabilities of their restoration protocols. Jennifer has also been extensively involved in the OIF and the IETF in GMPLS-related standardization activities. She co-authored the OIF UNI specification, numerous carrier requirements documents, GMPLS architecture documents and several restoration and NNI contributions.
ALBERT GREENBERG heads the IP Network Management and Performance Dept. at AT&T Labs-Research, a group which conducts research in networking, with an emphasis on large scale IP networks and systems, and emerging Internet technologies. His research interests include Internet traffic measurement, modeling and engineering, network management, and optical networking. In collaboration with several others in AT&T Labs, he is developing a unified toolkit to manage IP networks. In recent years, he has also worked with Jennifer Yates and others at AT&T on the Smart Router Simple Optics (SRSO) project, which initially proposed IP control of optical resources, and which has produced a complete GMPLS prototype.