Prof. Keren Bergman and Prof. Gil Zussman have received a $500K grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for their project titled "Cross Layer Control of Dynamic Optical Networks - from Theory to Experimentation".
The project is motivated by the fact that current optical networks are mostly statically provisioned at the lowest optical layer and that transforming the communications infrastructure to a dynamically provisioned optical infrastructure has the potential to allow on-demand provisioning of high-bandwidth circuits in support of various bandwidth intensive applications. The physical layer components of such a network are emerging from research on dynamic optical devices and technologies and offer unique opportunities. However, controlling dynamic optical networks while considering the physical layer Quality of Transmission and the higher layer requirements poses major challenges due to both the interactions of multiple light paths sharing the same fiber and the challenges of adapting to varying impairments.
The project will contribute to the deployment of dynamic optical networks by developing cross-layered network control algorithms for wide-area and data center optical networks. The algorithms will rely on the capabilities of real-time optical performance monitors (OPMs) and allow efficient use of the optical resources through dynamic network configuration, regeneration, and power, bandwidth, and modulation control. Since the effects of dynamic operation in wide-area networks are analytically intractable, the project will develop an optimization framework that, rather than employing theoretical models and analytical solutions, will use direct input from OPM measurements. For data center networks, the project will design network configuration schemes that allow physical support of various *-cast (unicast, anycast, multicast, etc.) higher layer requirements.
More details about the project are available here. More details on the joint research of the Wireless and Mobile Networking (WiMNet) Lab and the Lightwave Research Laboratory (LRL) on cross layering in optical networks can be found here.