SMART: An Optical Infrastructure for Future Internet

A new scalable optical network infrastructure SMART is proposed based on light-trails and hypernetwork architecture. The underlying physical network of SMART is a reconfigurable WDM network with reconfigurability distributed over network nodes. The reconfigurable node architecture is capable of dynamically setting up, modifying, and tearing down connections that consist of multi-access hyperchannels, which are an extension of light-trails. Like light-trails, hyperchannels are used to efficiently utilize bandwidth in subwavelength granularity. Hyperchannels and hyperpaths (hybrid connection paths) make SMART scalable. Equipped with a menu of switching techniques and connection types, SMART is able to manage optimized connections, and enforce individual service qualities and overall network performance. SMART network combines the best features of optics and electronics, making the network highly intelligent. Various virtual networks can be easily constructed over SMART. SMART encompasses the best features of existing mature electrical and optical network technologies, making these technologies as special cases. SMART is evolvable with backward compatibility. SMART is customizable for constructing LANs, MANs and WANs, and for access and transport. SMART provides an excellent alternative for the next generation Internet.