Network Working Group                                     J. Strand, Ed.
Request for Comments: 4054                                  A. Chiu, Ed.
Category: Informational                                             AT&T
                                                               May 2005


     Impairments and Other Constraints on Optical Layer Routing

Status of This Memo

  This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
  not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
  memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

  Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).

Abstract

  Optical networking poses a number challenges for Generalized Multi-
  Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS).  Fundamentally, optical technology
  is an analog rather than digital technology whereby the optical layer
  is lowest in the transport hierarchy and hence has an intimate
  relationship with the physical geography of the network.  This
  contribution surveys some of the aspects of optical networks that
  impact routing and identifies possible GMPLS responses for each:  (1)
  Constraints arising from the design of new software controllable
  network elements, (2) Constraints in a single all-optical domain
  without wavelength conversion, (3) Complications arising in more
  complex networks incorporating both all-optical and opaque
  architectures, and (4) Impacts of diversity constraints.

Table of Contents

  1.  Introduction .................................................  2
  2.  Sub-IP Area Summary and Justification of Work ................  3
  3.  Reconfigurable Network Elements ..............................  3
      3.1.  Technology Background ..................................  3
      3.2.  Implications for Routing ...............................  6
  4.  Wavelength Routed All-Optical Networks .......................  6
      4.1.  Problem Formulation ....................................  7
      4.2.  Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD) .....................  8
      4.3.  Amplifier Spontaneous Emission .........................  9
      4.4.  Approximating the Effects of Some Other
            Impairments Constraints ................................ 10
      4.5.  Other Impairment Considerations ........................ 13




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      4.6.  An Alternative Approach - Using Maximum
            Distance as the Only Constraint ........................ 13
      4.7.  Other Considerations ................................... 15
      4.8.  Implications for Routing and Control Plane Design ...... 15
  5.  More Complex Networks ........................................ 17
  6.  Diversity .................................................... 19
      6.1.  Background on Diversity ................................ 19
      6.2.  Implications for Routing ............................... 23
  7.  Security Considerations ...................................... 23
  8.  Acknowledgements ............................................. 24
  9.  References ................................................... 25
      9.1.  Normative References ................................... 25
      9.2.  Informative References ................................. 26
  10. Contributing Authors ......................................... 26

1.  Introduction

  Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS) [Mannie04] aims to
  extend MPLS to encompass a number of transport architectures,
  including optical networks that incorporate a number of all-optical
  and opto-electronic elements, such as optical cross-connects with
  both optical and electrical fabrics, transponders, and optical add-
  drop multiplexers.  Optical networking poses a number of challenges
  for GMPLS.  Fundamentally, optical technology is an analog rather
  than digital technology whereby the optical layer is lowest in the
  transport hierarchy and hence has an intimate relationship with the
  physical geography of the network.

  GMPLS already has incorporated extensions to deal with some of the
  unique aspects of the optical layer.  This contribution surveys some
  of the aspects of optical networks that impact routing and identifies
  possible GMPLS responses for each.  Routing constraints and/or
  complications arising from the design of network elements, the
  accumulation of signal impairments, and the need to guarantee the
  physical diversity of some circuits are discussed.

  Since the purpose of this document is to further the specification of
  GMPLS, alternative approaches to controlling an optical network are
  not discussed.  For discussions of some broader issues, see
  [Gerstel2000] and [Strand02].

  The organization of the contribution is as follows:

  -  Section 2 is a section requested by the sub-IP Area management for
     all new documents.  It explains how this document fits into the
     Area and into the IPO WG, and why it is appropriate for these
     groups.




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  -  Section 3 describes constraints arising from the design of new
     software controllable network elements.

  -  Section 4 addresses the constraints in a single all-optical domain
     without wavelength conversion.

  -  Section 5 extends the discussion to more complex networks and
     incorporates both all-optical and opaque architectures.

  -  Section 6 discusses the impacts of diversity constraints.

  -  Section 7 deals with security requirements.

  -  Section 8 contains acknowledgments.

  -  Section 9 contains references.

  -  Section 10 contains contributing authors' addresses.

2.  Sub-IP Area Summary and Justification of Work

  This document merges and extends two previous expired Internet-Drafts
  that were made IPO working group documents to form a basis for a
  design team at the Minneapolis IETF meeting, where it was also
  requested that they be merged to create a requirements document for
  the WG.

  In the larger sub-IP Area structure, this merged document describes
  specific characteristics of optical technology and the requirements
  they place on routing and path selection.  It is appropriate for the
  IPO working group because the material is specific to optical
  networks.  It identifies and documents the characteristics of the
  optical transport network that are important for selecting paths for
  optical channels, which is a work area for the IPO WG.  The material
  covered is directly aimed at establishing a framework and
  requirements for routing in an optical network.

3.  Reconfigurable Network Elements

3.1.  Technology Background

  Control plane architectural discussions (e.g., [Awduche99]) usually
  assume that the only software reconfigurable network element is an
  optical layer cross-connect (OLXC).  There are however other software
  reconfigurable elements on the horizon, specifically tunable lasers
  and receivers and reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers





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  (OADM).  These elements are illustrated in the following simple
  example, which is modeled on announced Optical Transport System (OTS)
  products:

              +                                       +
  ---+---+    |\                                     /|    +---+---
  ---| A |----|D|          X              Y         |D|----| A |---
  ---+---+    |W|     +--------+     +--------+     |W|    +---+---
       :      |D|-----|  OADM  |-----|  OADM  |-----|D|      :
  ---+---+    |M|     +--------+     +--------+     |M|    +---+---
  ---| A |----| |      |      |       |      |      | |----| A |---
  ---+---+    |/       |      |       |      |       \|    +---+---
              +      +---+  +---+   +---+  +---+      +
               D     | A |  | A |   | A |  | A |     E
                     +---+  +---+   +---+  +---+
                      | |    | |     | |    | |

      Figure 3-1: An OTS With OADMs - Functional Architecture

  In Fig. 3-1, the part that is on the inner side of all boxes labeled
  "A" defines an all-optical subnetwork.  From a routing perspective
  two aspects are critical:

  -  Adaptation: These are the functions done at the edges of the
     subnetwork that transform the incoming optical channel into the
     physical wavelength to be transported through the subnetwork.

  -  Connectivity: This defines which pairs of edge Adaptation
     functions can be interconnected through the subnetwork.

  In Fig. 3-1, D and E are DWDMs and X and Y are OADMs.  The boxes
  labeled "A" are adaptation functions.  They map one or more input
  optical channels assumed to be standard short reach signals into a
  long reach (LR) wavelength or wavelength group that will pass
  transparently to a distant adaptation function.  Adaptation
  functionality that affects routing includes:

  -  Multiplexing: Either electrical or optical TDM may be used to
     combine the input channels into a single wavelength.  This is done
     to increase effective capacity:  A typical DWDM might be able to
     handle 100 2.5 Gb/sec signals (250 Gb/sec total) or 50 10 Gb/sec
     (500 Gb/sec total); combining the 2.5 Gb/sec signals together thus
     effectively doubles capacity.  After multiplexing the combined
     signal must be routed as a group to the distant adaptation
     function.






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  -  Adaptation Grouping: In this technique, groups of k (e.g., 4)
     wavelengths are managed as a group within the system and must be
     added/dropped as a group.  We will call such a group an
     "adaptation grouping".  Examples include so called "wave group"
     and "waveband" [Passmore01].  Groupings on the same system may
     differ in basics such as wavelength spacing, which constrain the
     type of channels that can be accommodated.

  -  Laser Tunability: The lasers producing the LR wavelengths may have
     a fixed frequency, may be tunable over a limited range, or may be
     tunable over the entire range of wavelengths supported by the
     DWDM.  Tunability speeds may also vary.

  Connectivity between adaptation functions may also be limited:

  -  As pointed out above, TDM multiplexing and/or adaptation grouping
     by the adaptation function forces groups of input channels to be
     delivered together to the same distant adaptation function.

  -  Only adaptation functions whose lasers/receivers are tunable to
     compatible frequencies can be connected.

  -  The switching capability of the OADMs may also be constrained.

  For example:

  o  There may be some wavelengths that can not be dropped at all.

  o  There may be a fixed relationship between the frequency dropped
     and the physical port on the OADM to which it is dropped.

  o  OADM physical design may put an upper bound on the number of
     adaptation groupings dropped at any single OADM.

  For a fixed configuration of the OADMs and adaptation functions
  connectivity will be fixed: Each input port will essentially be
  hard-wired to some specific distant port.  However this connectivity
  can be changed by changing the configurations of the OADMs and
  adaptation functions.  For example, an additional adaptation grouping
  might be dropped at an OADM or a tunable laser retuned.  In each case
  the port-to-port connectivity is changed.

  These capabilities can be expected to be under software control.
  Today the control would rest in the vendor-supplied Element
  Management system (EMS), which in turn would be controlled by the
  operator's OSes.  However in principle the EMS could participate in
  the GMPLS routing process.




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3.2.  Implications for Routing

  An OTS of the sort discussed in Sec. 3.1 is essentially a
  geographically distributed but blocking cross-connect system.  The
  specific port connectivity is dependent on the vendor design and also
  on exactly what line cards have been deployed.

  One way for GMPLS to deal with this architecture would be to view the
  port connectivity as externally determined.  In this case the links
  known to GMPLS would be groups of identically routed wavebands.  If
  these were reconfigured by the external EMS the resulting
  connectivity changes would need to be detected and advertised within
  GMPLS.  If the topology shown in Fig. 3-1 became a tree or a mesh
  instead of the linear topology shown, the connectivity changes could
  result in Shared Risk Link Group (SRLG - see Section 6.2) changes.

  Alternatively, GMPLS could attempt to directly control this port
  connectivity.  The state information needed to do this is likely to
  be voluminous and vendor specific.

4.  Wavelength Routed All-Optical Networks

  The optical networks deployed until recently may be called "opaque"
  ([Tkach98]): each link is optically isolated by transponders doing
  O/E/O conversions.  They provide regeneration with retiming and
  reshaping, also called 3R, which eliminates transparency to bit rates
  and frame format.  These transponders are quite expensive and their
  lack of transparency also constrains the rapid introduction of new
  services.  Thus there are strong motivators to introduce "domains of
  transparency" - all-optical subnetworks - larger than an OTS.

  The routing of lightpaths through an all-optical network has received
  extensive attention.  (See [Yates99] or [Ramaswami98]).  When
  discussing routing in an all-optical network it is usually assumed
  that all routes have adequate signal quality.  This may be ensured by
  limiting all-optical networks to subnetworks of limited geographic
  size that are optically isolated from other parts of the optical
  layer by transponders.  This approach is very practical and has been
  applied to date, e.g., when determining the maximum length of an
  Optical Transport System (OTS).  Furthermore operational
  considerations like fault isolation also make limiting the size of
  domains of transparency attractive.

  There are however reasons to consider contained domains of
  transparency in which not all routes have adequate signal quality.
  From a demand perspective, maximum bit rates have rapidly increased
  from DS3 to OC-192 and soon OC-768 (40 Gb/sec).  As bit rates
  increase it is necessary to increase power.  This makes impairments



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  and nonlinearities more troublesome.  From a supply perspective,
  optical technology is advancing very rapidly, making ever-larger
  domains possible.  In this section, we assume that these
  considerations will lead to the deployment of a domain of
  transparency that is too large to ensure that all potential routes
  have adequate signal quality for all circuits.  Our goal is to
  understand the impacts of the various types of impairments in this
  environment.

  Note that, as we describe later in the section, there are many types
  of physical impairments.  Which of these needs to be dealt with
  explicitly when performing on-line distributed routing will vary
  considerably and will depend on many variables, including:

  -  Equipment vendor design choices,
  -  Fiber characteristics,
  -  Service characteristics (e.g., circuit speeds),
  -  Network size,
  -  Network operator engineering and deployment strategies.

  For example, a metropolitan network that does not intend to support
  bit rates above 2.5 Gb/sec may not be constrained by any of these
  impairments, while a continental or international network that wished
  to minimize O/E/O regeneration investment and support 40 Gb/sec
  connections might have to explicitly consider many of them.  Also, a
  network operator may reduce or even eliminate their constraint set by
  building a relatively small domain of transparency to ensure that all
  the paths are feasible, or by using some proprietary tools based on
  rules from the OTS vendor to pre-qualify paths between node pairs and
  put them in a table that can be accessed each time a routing decision
  has to be made through that domain.

4.1.  Problem Formulation

  We consider a single domain of transparency without wavelength
  translation.  Additionally, due to the proprietary nature of DWDM
  transmission technology, we assume that the domain is either single
  vendor or architected using a single coherent design, particularly
  with regard to the management of impairments.

  We wish to route a unidirectional circuit from ingress client node X
  to egress client node Y.  At both X and Y, the circuit goes through
  an O/E/O conversion that optically isolates the portion within our
  domain.  We assume that we know the bit rate of the circuit.  Also,
  we assume that the adaptation function at X may apply some Forward
  Error Correction (FEC) method to the circuit.  We also assume we know
  the launch power of the laser at X.




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  Impairments can be classified into two categories, linear and
  nonlinear.  (See [Tkach98] or [Kaminow02] for more on impairment
  constraints.)  Linear effects are independent of signal power and
  affect wavelengths individually.  Amplifier spontaneous emission
  (ASE), polarization mode dispersion (PMD), and chromatic dispersion
  are examples.  Nonlinearities are significantly more complex: they
  generate not only impairments on each channel, but also crosstalk
  between channels.

  In the remainder of this section we first outline how two key linear
  impairments (PMD and ASE) might be handled by a set of analytical
  formulae as additional constraints on routing.  We next discuss how
  the remaining constraints might be approached.  Finally we take a
  broader perspective and discuss the implications of such constraints
  on control plane architecture and also on broader constrained domain
  of transparency architecture issues.

4.2.  Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD)

  For a transparent fiber segment, the general PMD requirement is that
  the time-average differential group delay (DGD) between two
  orthogonal state of polarizations should be less than some fraction a
  of the bit duration, T=1/B, where B is the bit rate.  The value of
  the parameter a depends on three major factors: 1) margin allocated
  to PMD, e.g., 1dB; 2) targeted outage probability, e.g., 4x10-5, and
  3) sensitivity of the receiver to DGD.  A typical value for a is 10%
  [ITU].  More aggressive designs to compensate for PMD may allow
  values higher than 10%.  (This would be a system parameter dependent
  on the system design.  It would need to be known to the routing
  process.)

  The PMD parameter (Dpmd) is measured in pico-seconds (ps) per
  sqrt(km).  The square of the PMD in a fiber span, denoted as span-
  PMD-square is then given by the product of Dpmd**2 and the span
  length.  (A fiber span in a transparent network refers to a segment
  between two optical amplifiers.)  If Dpmd is constant, this results
  in a upper bound on the maximum length of an M-fiber-span transparent
  segment, which is inversely proportional to the square of the product
  of bit rate and Dpmd (the detailed equation is omitted due to the
  format constraint - see [Strand01] for details).

  For older fibers with a typical PMD parameter of 0.5 picoseconds per
  square root of km, based on the constraint, the maximum length of the
  transparent segment should not exceed 400km and 25km for bit rates of
  10Gb/s and 40Gb/s, respectively.  Due to recent advances in fiber
  technology, the PMD-limited distance has increased dramatically.  For
  newer fibers with a PMD parameter of 0.1 picosecond per square root
  of km, the maximum length of the transparent segment (without PMD



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  compensation) is limited to 10000km and 625km for bit rates of 10Gb/s
  and 40Gb/, respectively.  Still lower values of PMD are attainable in
  commercially available fiber today, and the PMD limit can be further
  extended if a larger value of the parameter a (ratio of DGD to the
  bit period) can be tolerated.  In general, the PMD requirement is not
  an issue for most types of fibers at 10Gb/s or lower bit rate.  But
  it will become an issue at bit rates of 40Gb/s and higher.

  If the PMD parameter varies between spans, a slightly more
  complicated equation results (see [Strand01]), but in any event the
  only link dependent information needed by the routing algorithm is
  the square of the link PMD, denoted as link-PMD-square.  It is the
  sum of the span-PMD-square of all spans on the link.

  Note that when one has some viable PMD compensation devices and
  deploy them ubiquitously on all routes with potential PMD issues in
  the network, then the PMD constraint disappears from the routing
  perspective.

4.3.  Amplifier Spontaneous Emission

  ASE degrades the optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR).  An acceptable
  optical SNR level (SNRmin), which depends on the bit rate,
  transmitter-receiver technology (e.g., FEC), and margins allocated
  for the impairments, needs to be maintained at the receiver.  In
  order to satisfy this requirement, vendors often provide some general
  engineering rule in terms of maximum length of the transparent
  segment and number of spans.  For example, current transmission
  systems are often limited to up to 6 spans each 80km long.  For
  larger transparent domains, more detailed OSNR computations will be
  needed to determine whether the OSNR level through a domain of
  transparency is acceptable.  This would provide flexibility in
  provisioning or restoring a lightpath through a transparent
  subnetwork.

  Assume that the average optical power launched at the transmitter is
  P.  The lightpath from the transmitter to the receiver goes through M
  optical amplifiers, with each introducing some noise power.  Unity
  gain can be used at all amplifier sites to maintain constant signal
  power at the input of each span to minimize noise power and
  nonlinearity.  A constraint on the maximum number of spans can be
  obtained [Kaminow97] which is proportional to P and inversely
  proportional to SNRmin, optical bandwidth B, amplifier gain G-1 and
  spontaneous emission factor n of the optical amplifier, assuming all
  spans have identical gain and noise figure.  (Again, the detailed
  equation is omitted due to the format constraint - see [Strand01] for
  details.)  Let's take a typical example.  Assuming P=4dBm,
  SNRmin=20dB with FEC, B=12.5GHz, n=2.5, G=25dB, based on the



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  constraint, the maximum number of spans is at most 10.  However, if
  FEC is not used and the requirement on SNRmin becomes 25dB, the
  maximum number of spans drops down to 3.

  For ASE the only link-dependent information needed by the routing
  algorithm is the noise of the link, denoted as link-noise, which is
  the sum of the noise of all spans on the link.  Hence the constraint
  on ASE becomes that the aggregate noise of the transparent segment
  which is the sum of the link-noise of all links can not exceed
  P/SNRmin.

4.4.  Approximating the Effects of Some Other Impairment Constraints

  There are a number of other impairment constraints that we believe
  could be approximated with a domain-wide margin on the OSNR, plus in
  some cases a constraint on the total number of networking elements
  (OXC or OADM) along the path.  Most impairments generated at OXCs or
  OADMs, including polarization dependent loss, coherent crosstalk, and
  effective passband width, could be dealt with using this approach.
  In principle, impairments generated at the nodes can be bounded by
  system engineering rules because the node elements can be designed
  and specified in a uniform manner.  This approach is not feasible
  with PMD and noise because neither can be uniformly specified.
  Instead, they depend on node spacing and the characteristics of the
  installed fiber plant, neither of which are likely to be under the
  system designer's control.

  Examples of the constraints we propose to approximate with a domain-
  wide margin are given in the remaining paragraphs in this section.
  It should be kept in mind that as optical transport technology
  evolves it may become necessary to include some of these impairments
  explicitly in the routing process.  Other impairments not mentioned
  here at all may also become sufficiently important to require
  incorporation either explicitly or via a domain-wide margin.

  Other Polarization Dependent Impairments
     Other polarization-dependent effects besides PMD influence system
     performance.  For example, many components have polarization-
     dependent loss (PDL) [Ramaswami98], which accumulates in a system
     with many components on the transmission path.  The state of
     polarization fluctuates with time and its distribution is very
     important also.  It is generally required that the total PDL on
     the path be maintained within some acceptable limit, potentially
     by using some compensation technology for relatively long
     transmission systems, plus a small built-in margin in OSNR.  Since
     the total PDL increases with the number of components in the data
     path, it must be taken into account by the system vendor when
     determining the maximum allowable number of spans.



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  Chromatic Dispersion
     In general this impairment can be adequately (but not optimally)
     compensated for on a per-link basis, and/or at system initial
     setup time.  Today most deployed compensation devices are based on
     Dispersion Compensation Fiber (DCF).  DCF provides per fiber
     compensation by means of a spool of fiber with a CD coefficient
     opposite to the fiber.  Due to the imperfect matching between the
     CD slope of the fiber and the DCF some lambdas can be over
     compensated while others can be under compensated.  Moreover DCF
     modules may only be available in fixed lengths of compensating
     fiber; this means that sometimes it is impossible to find a DCF
     module that exactly compensates the CD introduced by the fiber.
     These effects introduce what is known as residual CD.  Residual CD
     varies with the frequency of the wavelength.  Knowing the
     characteristics of both of the fiber and the DCF modules along the
     path, this can be calculated with a sufficient degree of
     precision.  However this is a very challenging task.  In fact the
     per-wavelength residual dispersion needs to be combined with other
     information in the system (e.g., types fibers to figure out the
     amount of nonlinearities) to obtain the net effect of CD either by
     simulation or by some analytical approximation.  It appears that
     the routing/control plane should not be burdened by such a large
     set of information while it can be handled at the system design
     level.  Therefore it will be assumed until proven otherwise that
     residual dispersion should not be reported.  For high bit rates,
     dynamic dispersion compensation may be required at the receiver to
     clean up any residual dispersion.

  Crosstalk
     Optical crosstalk refers to the effect of other signals on the
     desired signal.  It includes both coherent (i.e., intrachannel)
     crosstalk and incoherent (i.e., interchannel) crosstalk.  Main
     contributors of crosstalk are the OADM and OXC sites that use a
     DWDM multiplexer/demultiplexer (MUX/DEMUX) pair.  For a relatively
     sparse network where the number of OADM/OXC nodes on a path is
     low, crosstalk can be treated with a low margin in OSNR without
     being a binding constraint.  But for some relatively dense
     networks where crosstalk might become a binding constraint, one
     needs to propagate the per-link crosstalk information to make sure
     that the end-to-end path crosstalk which is the sum of the
     crosstalks on all the corresponding links to be within some limit,
     e.g., -25dB threshold with 1dB penalty ([Goldstein94]).  Another
     way to treat it without having to propagate per-link crosstalk
     information is to have the system evaluate what the maximum number
     of OADM/OXC nodes that has a MUX/DEMUX pair for the worst route in
     the transparent domain for a low built-in margin.  The latter one
     should work well where all the OXC/OADM nodes have similar level
     of crosstalk.



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  Effective Passband
     As more and more DWDM components are cascaded, the effective
     passband narrows.  The number of filters along the link, their
     passband width and their shape will determine the end-to-end
     effective passband.  In general, this is a system design issue,
     i.e., the system is designed with certain maximum bit rate using
     the proper modulation format and filter spacing.  For linear
     systems, the filter effect can be turned into a constraint on the
     maximum number of narrow filters with the condition that filters
     in the systems are at least as wide as the one in the receiver.
     Because traffic at lower bit rates can tolerate a narrower
     passband, the maximum allowable number of narrow filters will
     increase as the bit rate decreases.

  Nonlinear Impairments
     It seems unlikely that these can be dealt with explicitly in a
     routing algorithm because they lead to constraints that can couple
     routes together and lead to complex dependencies, e.g., on the
     order in which specific fiber types are traversed [Kaminow97].
     Note that different fiber types (standard single mode fiber,
     dispersion shifted fiber, dispersion compensated fiber, etc.) have
     very different effects from nonlinear impairments.  A full
     treatment of the nonlinear constraints would likely require very
     detailed knowledge of the physical infrastructure, including
     measured dispersion values for each span, fiber core area and
     composition, as well as knowledge of subsystem details such as
     dispersion compensation technology.  This information would need
     to be combined with knowledge of the current loading of optical
     signals on the links of interest to determine the level of
     nonlinear impairment.  Alternatively, one could assume that
     nonlinear impairments are bounded and result in X dB margin in the
     required OSNR level for a given bit rate, where X for performance
     reasons would be limited to 1 or 2 dB, consequently setting a
     limit on the maximum number of spans.  For the approach described
     here to be useful, it is desirable for this span length limit to
     be longer than that imposed by the constraints which can be
     treated explicitly.  When designing a DWDM transport system, there
     are tradeoffs between signal power launched at the transmitter,
     span length, and nonlinear effects on BER that need to be
     considered jointly.  Here, we assume that an X dB margin is
     obtained after the transport system has been designed with a fixed
     signal power and maximum span length for a given bit rate.  Note
     that OTSs can be designed in very different ways, in linear,
     pseudo-linear, or nonlinear environments.  The X-dB margin
     approach may be valid for some but not for others.  However, it is
     likely that there is an advantage in designing systems that are





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     less aggressive with respect to nonlinearities, and therefore
     somewhat sub-optimal, in exchange for improved scalability,
     simplicity and flexibility in routing and control plane design.

4.5.  Other Impairment Considerations

  There are many other types of impairments that can degrade
  performance.  In this section, we briefly mention one other type of
  impairment, which we propose be dealt with by either the system
  designer or by the transmission engineers at the time the system is
  installed.  If dealt with successfully in this manner they should not
  need to be considered in the dynamic routing process.

  Gain Nonuniformity and Gain Transients For simple noise estimates to
  be of use, the amplifiers must be gain-flattened and must have
  automatic gain control (AGC).  Furthermore, each link should have
  dynamic gain equalization (DGE) to optimize power levels each time
  wavelengths are added or dropped.  Variable optical attenuators on
  the output ports of an OXC or OADM can be used for this purpose, and
  in-line devices are starting to become commercially available.
  Optical channel monitors are also required to provide feedback to the
  DGEs.  AGC must be done rapidly if signal degradation after a
  protection switch or link failure is to be avoided.

  Note that the impairments considered here are treated more or less
  independently.  By considering them jointly and varying the tradeoffs
  between the effects from different components may allow more routes
  to be feasible.  If that is desirable or the system is designed such
  that certain impairments (e.g., nonlinearities) need to be considered
  by a centralized process, then distributed routing is not the one to
  use.

4.6.  An Alternative Approach - Using Maximum Distance as the Only
     Constraint

  Today, carriers often use maximum distance to engineer point-to-point
  OTS systems given a fixed per-span length based on the OSNR
  constraint for a given bit rate.  They may desire to keep the same
  engineering rule when they move to all-optical networks.  Here, we
  discuss the assumptions that need to be satisfied to keep this
  approach viable and how to treat the network elements between two
  adjacent links.

  In order to use the maximum distance for a given bit rate to meet an
  OSNR constraint as the only binding constraint, the operators need to
  satisfy the following constraints in their all-optical networks:





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  -  All the other non-OSNR constraints described in the previous
     subsections are not binding factors as long as the maximum
     distance constraint is met.

  -  Specifically for PMD, this means that the whole all-optical
     network is built on top of sufficiently low-PMD fiber such that
     the upper bound on the mean aggregate path DGD is always satisfied
     for any path that does not exceed the maximum distance, or PMD
     compensation devices might be used for routes with high-PMD
     fibers.

  -  In terms of the ASE/OSNR constraint, in order to convert the ASE
     constraint into a distance constraint directly, the network needs
     to have a fixed fiber distance D for each span (so that ASE can be
     directly mapped by the gain of the amplifier which equals to the
     loss of the previous fiber span), e.g., 80km spacing which is
     commonly chosen by carriers.  However, when spans have variable
     lengths, certain adjustment and compromise need to be made in
     order to avoid treating ASE explicitly as in section 4.3.  These
     include: 1) Unless a certain mechanism is built in the OTS to take
     advantage of shorter spans, spans shorter than a typical span
     length D need to be treated as a span of length D instead of with
     its real length.  2) Spans that are longer than D would have a
     higher average span loss.  In general, the maximum system reach
     decreases when the average span loss increases.  Thus, in order to
     accommodate longer spans in the network, the maximum distance
     upper bound has to be set with respect to the average span loss of
     the worst path in the network.  This sub-optimality may be
     acceptable for some networks if the variance is not too large, but
     may be too conservative for others.

  If these assumptions are satisfied, the second issue we need to
  address is how to treat a transparent network element (e.g., MEMS-
  based switch) between two adjacent links in terms of a distance
  constraint since it also introduces an insertion loss.  If the
  network element cannot somehow compensate for this OSNR degradation,
  one approach is to convert each network element into an equivalent
  length of fiber based on its loss/ASE contribution.  Hence, in
  general, introducing a set of transparent network elements would
  effectively result in reducing the overall actual transmission
  distance between the OEO edges.

  With this approach, the link-specific state information is link-
  distance, the length of a link.  It equals the distance sum of all
  fiber spans on the link and the equivalent length of fiber for the
  network element(s) on the link.  The constraint is that the sum of





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  all the link-distance over all links of a path should be less than
  the maximum-path-distance, the upper bound of all paths.

4.7.  Other Considerations

  Routing in an all-optical network without wavelength conversion
  raises several additional issues:

  -  Since the route selected must have the chosen wavelength available
     on all links, this information needs to be considered in the
     routing process.  One approach is to propagate information
     throughout the network about the state of every wavelength on
     every link in the network.  However, the state required and the
     overhead involved in processing and maintaining this information
     is proportional to the total number of links (thus, number of
     nodes squared), maximum number of wavelengths (which keeps
     doubling every couple of years), and the frequency of wavelength
     availability changes, which can be very high.  Instead
     [Hjalmtysson00], proposes an alternative method which probes along
     a chosen path to determine which wavelengths (if any) are
     available.  This would require a significant addition to the
     routing logic normally used in OSPF.  Others have proposed
     simultaneously probing along multiple paths.

  -  Choosing a path first and then a wavelength along the path is
     known to give adequate results in simple topologies such as rings
     and trees ([Yates99]).  This does not appear to be true in large
     mesh networks under realistic provisioning scenarios, however.
     Instead significantly better results are achieved if wavelength
     and route are chosen simultaneously ([Strand01b]).  This approach
     would however also have a significant effect on OSPF.

4.8.  Implications For Routing and Control Plane Design

  If distributed routing is desired, additional state information will
  be required by the routing to deal with the impairments described in
  Sections 4.2 - 4.4:

  -  As mentioned earlier, an operator who wants to avoid having to
     provide impairment-related parameters to the control plane may
     elect not to deal with them at the routing level, instead treating
     them at the system design and planning level if that is a viable
     approach for their network.  In this approach the operator can
     pre-qualify all or a set of feasible end-to-end optical paths
     through the domain of transparency for each bit rate.  This
     approach may work well with relatively small and sparse networks,
     but it may not be scalable for large and dense networks where the
     number of feasible paths can be very large.



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  -  If the optical paths are not pre-qualified, additional link-
     specific state information will be required by the routing
     algorithm for each type of impairment that has the potential of
     being limiting for some routes.  Note that for one operator, PMD
     might be the only limiting constraint while for another, ASE might
     be the only one, or it could be both plus some other constraints
     considered in this document.  Some networks might not be limited
     by any of these constraints.

  -  For an operator needing to deal explicitly with these constraints,
     the link-dependent information identified above for PMD is link-
     PMD-square which is the square of the total PMD on a link.  For
     ASE the link-dependent information identified is link-noise which
     is the total noise on a link.  Other link-dependent information
     includes link-span-length which is the total number of spans on a
     link, link-crosstalk or OADM-OXC-number which is the total
     crosstalk or the number of OADM/OXC nodes on a link, respectively,
     and filter-number which is the number of narrow filters on a link.
     When the alternative distance-only approach is chosen, the link-
     specific information is link-distance.

  -  In addition to the link-specific information, bounds on each of
     the impairments need to be quantified.  Since these bounds are
     determined by the system designer's impairment allocations, these
     will be system dependent.  For PMD, the constraint is that the sum
     of the link-PMD-square of all links on the transparent segment is
     less than the square of (a/B) where B is the bit rate.  Hence, the
     required information is the parameter "a".  For ASE, the
     constraint is that the sum of the link-noise of all links is no
     larger than P/SNRmin.  Thus, the information needed include the
     launch power P and OSNR requirement SNRmin.  The minimum
     acceptable OSNR, in turn, depends on the strength of the FEC being
     used and the margins reserved for other types of impairments.
     Other bounds include the maximum span length of the transmission
     system, the maximum path crosstalk or the maximum number of
     OADM/OXC nodes, and the maximum number of narrow filters, all are
     bit rate dependent.  With the alternative distance-only approach,
     the upper bound is the maximum-path-distance.  In single-vendor
     "islands" some of these parameters may be available in a local or
     EMS database and would not need to be advertised

  -  It is likely that the physical layer parameters do not change
     value rapidly and could be stored in some database; however these
     are physical layer parameters that today are frequently not known
     at the granularity required.  If the ingress node of a lightpath
     does path selection these parameters would need to be available at
     this node.




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  -  The specific constraints required in a given situation will depend
     on the design and engineering of the domain of transparency; for
     example it will be essential to know whether chromatic dispersion
     has been dealt with on a per-link basis, and whether the domain is
     operating in a linear or nonlinear regime.

  -  As optical transport technology evolves, the set of constraints
     that will need to be considered either explicitly or via a
     domain-wide margin may change.  The routing and control plane
     design should therefore be as open as possible, allowing
     parameters to be included as necessary.

  -  In the absence of wavelength conversion, the necessity of finding
     a single wavelength that is available on all links introduces the
     need to either advertise detailed information on wavelength
     availability, which probably doesn't scale, or have some mechanism
     for probing potential routes with or without crankback to
     determine wavelength availability.  Choosing the route first, and
     then the wavelength, may not yield acceptable utilization levels
     in mesh-type networks.

5.  More Complex Networks

  Mixing optical equipment in a single domain of transparency that has
  not been explicitly designed to interwork is beyond the scope of this
  document.  This includes most multi-vendor all-optical networks.

  An optical network composed of multiple domains of transparency
  optically isolated from each other by O/E/O devices (transponders) is
  more plausible.  A network composed of both "opaque" (optically
  isolated) OLXCs and one or more all-optical "islands" isolated by
  transponders is of particular interest because this is most likely
  how all-optical technologies (such as that described in Sec. 2) are
  going to be introduced.  (We use the term "island" in this discussion
  rather than a term like "domain" or "area" because these terms are
  associated with specific approaches like BGP or OSPF.)

  We consider the complexities raised by these alternatives now.

  The first requirement for routing in a multi-island network is that
  the routing process needs to know the extent of each island.  There
  are several reasons for this:

  -  When entering or leaving an all-optical island, the regeneration
     process cleans up the optical impairments discussed in Sec. 3.

  -  Each all-optical island may have its own bounds on each
     impairment.



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  -  The routing process needs to be sensitive to the costs associated
     with "island-hopping".

  This last point needs elaboration.  It is extremely important to
  realize that, at least in the short to intermediate term, the
  resources committed by a single routing decision can be very
  significant: The equipment tied up by a single coast-to-coast OC-192
  can easily have a first cost of $10**6, and the holding times on a
  circuit once established is likely to be measured in months.
  Carriers will expect the routing algorithms used to be sensitive to
  these costs.  Simplistic measures of cost such as the number of
  "hops" are not likely to be acceptable.

  Taking the case of an all-optical island consisting of an "ultra
  long-haul" system like that in Fig. 3-1 embedded in an OEO network of
  electrical fabric OLXCs as an example: It is likely that the ULH
  system will be relatively expensive for short hops but relatively
  economical for longer distances.  It is therefore likely to be
  deployed as a sort of "express backbone".  In this scenario a carrier
  is likely to expect the routing algorithm to balance OEO costs
  against the additional costs associated with ULH technology and route
  circuitously to make maximum use of the backbone where appropriate.
  Note that the metrics used to do this must be consistent throughout
  the routing domain if this expectation is to be met.

  The first-order implications for GMPLS seem to be:

  -  Information about island boundaries needs to be advertised.

  -  The routing algorithm needs to be sensitive to island transitions
     and to the connectivity limitations and impairment constraints
     particular to each island.

  -  The cost function used in routing must allow the balancing of
     transponder costs, OXC and OADM costs, and line haul costs across
     the entire routing domain.

  Several distributed approaches to multi-island routing seem worth
  investigating:

  -  Advertise the internal topology and constraints of each island
     globally; let the ingress node compute an end-to-end strict
     explicit route sensitive to all constraints and wavelength
     availabilities.  In this approach the routing algorithm used by
     the ingress node must be able to deal with the details of routing
     within each island.





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  -  Have the EMS or control plane of each island determine and
     advertise the connectivity between its boundary nodes together
     with additional information such as costs and the bit rates and
     formats supported.  As the spare capacity situation changes,
     updates would be advertised.  In this approach impairment
     constraints are handled within each island and impairment-related
     parameters need not be advertised outside of the island.  The
     ingress node would then do a loose explicit route and leave the
     routing and wavelength selection within each island to the island.

  -  Have the ingress node send out probes or queries to nearby gateway
     nodes or to an NMS to get routing guidance.

6.  Diversity

6.1.  Background on Diversity

  "Diversity" is a relationship between lightpaths.  Two lightpaths are
  said to be diverse if they have no single point of failure.  In
  traditional telephony the dominant transport failure mode is a
  failure in the interoffice plant, such as a fiber cut inflicted by a
  backhoe.

  Why is diversity a unique problem that needs to be considered for
  optical networks?  Traditionally, data network operators have relied
  on their private line providers to ensure diversity and so have not
  had to deal directly with the problem.  GMPLS makes the complexities
  handled by the private line provisioning process, including
  diversity, part of the common control plane and so visible to all.

  To determine whether two lightpath routings are diverse it is
  necessary to identify single points of failure in the interoffice
  plant.  To do so we will use the following terms: A fiber cable is a
  uniform group of fibers contained in a sheath.  An Optical Transport
  System will occupy fibers in a sequence of fiber cables.  Each fiber
  cable will be placed in a sequence of conduits - buried honeycomb
  structures through which fiber cables may be pulled - or buried in a
  right of way (ROW).  A ROW is land in which the network operator has
  the right to install his conduit or fiber cable.  It is worth noting
  that for economic reasons, ROWs are frequently obtained from
  railroads, pipeline companies, or thruways.  It is frequently the
  case that several carriers may lease ROW from the same source; this
  makes it common to have a number of carriers' fiber cables in close
  proximity to each other.  Similarly, in a metropolitan network,
  several carriers might be leasing duct space in the same RBOC
  conduit.  There are also "carrier's carriers" - optical networks
  which provide fibers to multiple carriers, all of whom could be
  affected by a single failure in the "carrier's carrier" network.  In



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  a typical intercity facility network there might be on the order of
  100 offices that are candidates for OLXCs.  To represent the inter-
  office fiber network accurately a network with an order of magnitude
  more nodes is required.  In addition to Optical Amplifier (OA) sites,
  these additional nodes include:

  -  Places where fiber cables enter/leave a conduit or right of way;

  -  Locations where fiber cables cross; Locations where fiber splices
     are used to interchange fibers between fiber cables.

  An example of the first might be:

                                   A                 B
     A-------------B                 \             /
                                       \         /
                                         X-----Y
                                       /         \
     C-------------D                 /             \
                                   C                 D

     (a) Fiber Cable Topology      (b) Right-Of-Way/Conduit Topology

            Figure 6-1:  Fiber Cable vs. ROW Topologies

  Here the A-B fiber cable would be physically routed A-X-Y-B and the
  C-D cable would be physically routed C-X-Y-D.  This topology might
  arise because of some physical bottleneck: X-Y might be the Lincoln
  Tunnel, for example, or the Bay Bridge.

  Fiber route crossing (the second case) is really a special case of
  this, where X and Y coincide.  In this case the crossing point may
  not even be a manhole; the fiber routes might just be buried at
  different depths.

  Fiber splicing (the third case) often occurs when a major fiber route
  passes near to a small office.  To avoid the expense and additional
  transmission loss only a small number of fibers are spliced out of
  the major route into a smaller route going to the small office.  This
  might well occur in a manhole or hut.  An example is shown in Fig.
  6-2(a), where A-X-B is the major route, X the manhole, and C the
  smaller office.  The actual fiber topology would then look like Fig.
  6-2(b), where there would typically be many more A-B fibers than A-C
  or C-B fibers, and where A-C and C-B might have different numbers of
  fibers.  (One of the latter might even be missing.)






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                     C                             C
                     |                           /   \
                     |                         /       \
                     |                       /           \
              A------X------B              A---------------B

              (a) Fiber Cable Topology     (b) Fiber Topology

                Figure 6-2.  Fiber Cable vs Fiber Topologies

  The imminent deployment of ultra-long (>1000 km) Optical Transport
  Systems introduces a further complexity: Two OTSes could interact a
  number of times.  To make up a hypothetical example: A New York -
  Atlanta OTS and a Philadelphia - Orlando OTS might ride on the same
  right of way for x miles in Maryland and then again for y miles in
  Georgia.  They might also cross at Raleigh or some other intermediate
  node without sharing right of way.

  Diversity is often equated to routing two lightpaths between a single
  pair of points, or different pairs of points so that no single route
  failure will disrupt them both.  This is too simplistic, for a number
  of reasons:

  -  A sophisticated client of an optical network will want to derive
     diversity needs from his/her end customers' availability
     requirements.  These often lead to more complex diversity
     requirements than simply providing diversity between two
     lightpaths.  For example, a common requirement is that no single
     failure should isolate a node or nodes.  If a node A has single
     lightpaths to nodes B and C, this requires A-B and A-C to be
     diverse.  In real applications, a large data network with N
     lightpaths between its routers might describe their needs in an
     NxN matrix, where (i,j) defines whether lightpaths i and j must be
     diverse.

  -  Two circuits that might be considered diverse for one application
     might not be considered diverse for in another situation.
     Diversity is usually thought of as a reaction to interoffice route
     failures.  High reliability applications may require other types
     of failures to be taken into account.  Some examples:

     o  Office Outages: Although less frequent than route failures,
        fires, power outages, and floods do occur.  Many network
        managers require that diverse routes have no (intermediate)
        nodes in common.  In other cases an intermediate node might be
        acceptable as long as there is power diversity within the
        office.




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RFC 4054                 Optical Layer Routing                  May 2005


     o  Shared Rings: Many applications are willing to allow "diverse"
        circuits to share a SONET ring-protected link; presumably they
        would allow the same for optical layer rings.

     o  Disasters: Earthquakes and floods can cause failures over an
        extended area.  Defense Department circuits might need to be
        routed with nuclear damage radii taken into account.

  -  Conversely, some networks may be willing to take somewhat larger
     risks.  Taking route failures as an example: Such a network might
     be willing to consider two fiber cables in heavy duty concrete
     conduit as having a low enough chance of simultaneous failure to
     be considered "diverse".  They might also be willing to view two
     fiber cables buried on opposite sides of a railroad track as being
     diverse because there is minimal danger of a single backhoe
     disrupting them both even though a bad train wreck might
     jeopardize them both.  A network seeking N mutually diverse paths
     from an office with less than N diverse ROWs will need to live
     with some level of compromise in the immediate vicinity of the
     office.

  These considerations strongly suggest that the routing algorithm
  should be sensitive to the types of threat considered unacceptable by
  the requester.  Note that the impairment constraints described in the
  previous section may eliminate some of the long circuitous routes
  sometimes needed to provide diversity.  This would make it harder to
  find many diverse paths through an all-optical network than an opaque
  one.

  [Hjalmtysson00] introduced the term "Shared Risk Link Group" (SRLG)
  to describe the relationship between two non-diverse links.  The
  above examples and discussion given at the start of this section
  suggests that an SRLG should be characterized by 2 parameters:

  -  Type of Compromise: Examples would be shared fiber cable, shared
     conduit, shared ROW, shared optical ring, shared office without
     power sharing, etc.)

  -  Extent of Compromise:  For compromised outside plant, this would
     be the length of the sharing.

  A CSPF algorithm could then penalize a diversity compromise by an
  amount dependent on these two parameters.








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  Two links could be related by many SRLGs.  (AT&T's experience
  indicates that a link may belong to over 100 SRLGs, each
  corresponding to a separate fiber group.)  Each SRLG might relate a
  single link to many other links.  For the optical layer, similar
  situations can be expected where a link is an ultra-long OTS.

  The mapping between links and different types of SRLGs is in general
  defined by network operators based on the definition of each SRLG
  type.  Since SRLG information is not yet ready to be discoverable by
  a network element and does not change dynamically, it need not be
  advertised with other resource availability information by network
  elements.  It could be configured in some central database and be
  distributed to or retrieved by the nodes, or advertised by network
  elements at the topology discovery stage.

6.2.  Implications For Routing

  Dealing with diversity is an unavoidable requirement for routing in
  the optical layer.  It requires dealing with constraints in the
  routing process, but most importantly requires additional state
  information (e.g., the SRLG relationships).  The routings of any
  existing circuits from which the new circuit must be diverse must
  also be available to the routing process.

  At present SRLG information cannot be self-discovered.  Indeed, in a
  large network it is very difficult to maintain accurate SRLG
  information.  The problem becomes particularly daunting whenever
  multiple administrative domains are involved, for instance after the
  acquisition of one network by another, because there normally is a
  likelihood that there are diversity violations between the domains.
  It is very unlikely that diversity relationships between carriers
  will be known any time in the near future.

  Considerable variation in what different customers will mean by
  acceptable diversity should be anticipated.  Consequently we suggest
  that an SRLG should be defined as follows: (i) It is a relationship
  between two or more links, and (ii) it is characterized by two
  parameters, the type of compromise (shared conduit, shared ROW,
  shared optical ring, etc.) and the extent of the compromise (e.g.,
  the number of miles over which the compromise persisted).  This will
  allow the SRLGs appropriate to a particular routing request to be
  easily identified.

7.  Security Considerations

  We are assuming OEO interfaces to the domain(s) covered by our
  discussion (see, e.g., Sec. 4.1 above).  If this assumption were to
  be relaxed and externally generated optical signals allowed into the



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  domain, network security issues would arise.  Specifically,
  unauthorized usage in the form of signals at improper wavelengths or
  with power levels or impairments inconsistent with those assumed by
  the domain would be possible.  With OEO interfaces, these types of
  layer one threats should be controllable.

  A key layer one security issue is resilience in the face of physical
  attack.  Diversity, as describe in Sec. 6, is a part of the solution.
  However, it is ineffective if there is not sufficient spare capacity
  available to make the network whole after an attack.  Several major
  related issues are:

  -  Defining the threat: If, for example, an electro-magnetic
     interference (EMI) burst is an in-scope threat, then (in the
     terminology of Sec. 6) all of the links sufficiently close
     together to be disrupted by such a burst must be included in a
     single SRLG.  Similarly for other threats: For each in-scope
     threat, SRLGs must be defined so that all links vulnerable to a
     single incident of the threat must be grouped together in a single
     SRLG.

  -  Allocating responsibility for responding to a layer one failure
     between the various layers (especially the optical and IP layers):
     This must be clearly specified to avoid churning and unnecessary
     service interruptions.

  The whole proposed process depends on the integrity of the impairment
  characterization information (PMD parameters, etc.) and also the SRLG
  definitions.  Security of this information, both when stored and when
  distributed, is essential.

  This document does not address control plane issues, and so control-
  plane security is out of scope.  IPO control plane security
  considerations are discussed in [Rajagopalam04].  Security
  considerations for GMPLS, a likely control plane candidate, are
  discussed in [Mannie04].

8.  Acknowledgments

  This document has benefited from discussions with Michael Eiselt,
  Jonathan Lang, Mark Shtaif, Jennifer Yates, Dongmei Wang, Guangzhi
  Li, Robert Doverspike, Albert Greenberg, Jim Maloney, John Jacob,
  Katie Hall, Diego Caviglia, D. Papadimitriou, O. Audouin, J. P.
  Faure, L. Noirie, and with our OIF colleagues.







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9.  References

9.1.  Normative References

  [Goldstein94]   Goldstein, E. L., Eskildsen, L., and Elrefaie, A. F.,
                  Performance Implications of Component Crosstalk in
                  Transparent Lightwave Networks", IEEE Photonics
                  Technology Letters, Vol.6, No.5, May 1994.

  [Hjalmtysson00] Gsli Hjalmtysson, Jennifer Yates, Sid Chaudhuri and
                  Albert Greenberg, "Smart Routers - Simple Optics: An
                  Architecture for the Optical Internet, IEEE/OSA
                  Journal of Lightwave Technology, December 2000, Vo
                  18, Issue 12, Dec. 2000, pp. 1880-1891.

  [ITU]           ITU-T Doc. G.663, Optical Fibers and Amplifiers,
                  Section II.4.1.2.

  [Kaminow97]     Kaminow, I. P. and Koch, T. L., editors, Optical
                  Fiber Telecommunications IIIA, Academic Press, 1997.

  [Mannie04]      Mannie, E., Ed., "Generalized Multi-Protocol Label
                  Switching (GMPLS) Architecture", RFC 3945, October
                  2004.

  [Rajagopalam04]  Rajagopalan, B., Luciani, J., and D. Awduche, "IP
                  over Optical Networks: A Framework", RFC 3717, March
                  2004.

  [Strand01]      Strand, J., Chiu, A., and R. Tkach, "Issues for
                  Routing in the Optical Layer", IEEE Communications
                  Magazine, Feb. 2001, vol. 39 No. 2, pp. 81-88.

  [Strand01b]     Strand, J., Doverspike, R., and G. Li, "Importance of
                  Wavelength Conversion In An Optical Network", Optical
                  Networks Magazine, May/June 2001, pp. 33-44.

  [Yates99]       Yates, J. M., Rumsewicz, M. P., and J. P. R. Lacey,
                  "Wavelength Converters in Dynamically-Reconfigurable
                  WDM Networks", IEEE Communications Surveys, 2Q1999
                  (online at
                  www.comsoc.org/pubs/surveys/2q99issue/yates.html).









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9.2.  Informative References

  [Awduche99]     Awduche, D. O., Rekhter, Y., Drake, J., R. and
                  Coltun, "Multi-Protocol Lambda Switching: Combining
                  MPLS Traffic Engineering Control With Optical
                  Crossconnects", Work in Progress.

  [Gerstel2000]   Gorstel, O., "Optical Layer Signaling: How Much Is
                  Really Needed?" IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 38
                  no. 10, Oct. 2000, pp. 154-160

  [Kaminow02]     Ivan P. Kaminow and Tingye Li (editors), "Optical
                  Fiber Communications IV: Systems and Impairments",
                  Elsevier Press, 2002.

  [Passmore01]    Passmore, D., "Managing Fatter Pipes," Business
                  Communications Review, August 2001, pp. 20-21.

  [Ramaswami98]   Ramaswami, R. and K. N. Sivarajan, Optical Networks:
                  A Practical Perspective, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers,
                  1998.

  [Strand02]      John Strand, "Optical Network Architecture
                  Evolution", in [Kaminow02].

  [Tkach98]       Tkach, R., Goldstein, E., Nagel, J., and J. Strand,
                  "Fundamental Limits of Optical Transparency", Optical
                  Fiber Communication Conf., Feb. 1998, pp. 161-162.

10.  Contributing Authors

  This document was a collective work of a number of people. The text
  and content of this document was contributed by the editors and the
  co-authors listed below.

  Ayan Banerjee
  Calient Networks
  6620 Via Del Oro
  San Jose, CA 95119
  EMail: [email protected]


  Prof. Dan Blumenthal
  Eng. Science Bldg., Room 2221F
  Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
  University of California
  Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9560
  EMail: [email protected]



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RFC 4054                 Optical Layer Routing                  May 2005


  Dr. John Drake
  Boeing
  2260 E Imperial Highway
  El Segundo, Ca 90245
  EMail: [email protected]


  Andre Fredette
  Hatteras Networks
  PO Box 110025
  Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
  EMail: [email protected]


  Change Nan Froberg's reach info to:
  Dr. Nan Froberg
  Photonic Systems, Inc.
  900 Middlesex Turnpike, Bldg #5
  Billerica, MA 01821
  EMail: [email protected]


  Dr. Taha Landolsi
  King Fahd University
  KFUPM Mail Box 1026
  Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
  EMail: [email protected]


  James V. Luciani
  900 Chelmsford St.
  Lowell, MA 01851
  EMail: [email protected]


  Dr. Robert Tkach
  32 Carriage House Lane
  Little Silver, NJ 07739
  908 246 5048
  EMail: [email protected]











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RFC 4054                 Optical Layer Routing                  May 2005


  Yong Xue
  Dr. Yong Xue
  DoD/DISA
  5600 Columbia Pike
  Falls Church VA 22041
  EMail: [email protected]

Editors' Addresses

  Angela Chiu
  AT&T Labs
  200 Laurel Ave., Rm A5-1F13
  Middletown, NJ 07748

  Phone: (732) 420-9061
  EMail: [email protected]


  John Strand
  AT&T Labs
  200 Laurel Ave., Rm A5-1D33
  Middletown, NJ 07748

  Phone: (732) 420-9036
  EMail: [email protected]


























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Full Copyright Statement

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Acknowledgement

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