Unified transport network for future Peta bit network

This paper proposes a "photonic adaptation layer" (PAL) to efficiently transport IP packets, ATM cells, and voice over a high-speed WDM photonic network while supporting QoS requirements. In this scheme, the PAL path is introduced as a virtual path from the ingress to the egress port of the photonic network. PAL frame encapsulates IP packets/ATM cells/STM data transparently. On PAL path, PAL frames are transmitted according to its path label located on its header. The most characteristic feature of the PAL frame encapsulation is that multiple data destined to the same egress port with the same QoS priority is mapped into a single PAL frame. Through monitoring the PAL frame trailer and defining OAM frame, performance monitoring for the PAL path can be accommodated. The proposed network consists of edge and core routers interconnected by WDM transport. Each link is re-configurable by provisioning on wavelength layer according to traffic demand. The load balancing technique for mapping of the PAL path to multiple wavelengths is shown. Through these mechanisms, any granularity of bandwidth can be assigned to each PAL path irrespective of the wavelength rate. A simple method to aggregate traffic is verified on the network having the throughput of 1 Peta bit/sec.