ABSTRACT:

Long-reach optics and configurable all-optical networks provide economic benefits for carriers in terms of both capital and operating expenses by significantly reducing the amount of equipment required in the network. Such networks are currently entering the marketplace, and there is a desire in the OIF and other standards organizations to generalize their respective architectural models to include configurable all-optical networks. This contribution is a proposal for initiating a new project in the OIF to address the specific features of such networks as they relate to signaling for automatic provisioning and restoration of optical paths. The scope of the project is to propose the first phase of extensions to the current OIF Optical UNI to include a universally accepted reference model of a configurable all-optical network layer. The scope of the project also includes establishing a roadmap for future work, e.g., other reference models and multi-domain aspects of all-optical networks.

Complete Contribution in Adobe Acrobat format (5 pages, 29,871 bytes)