Architecture and control of an adaptive high capacity flat network

This article discusses the design of a scalable high-performance multiservice network based on programmable transport. A meshed network with dynamically adjustable link capacities and nodes which provide data packing into "containers" for transport is proposed. A ring-based network, exchanging data containers among its nodes, is the preferred implementation due to its flexibility, maintainability, and high reliability. With lossless rings, the quality of service is controlled solely by the origin and destination nodes, without any interference from other data streams. Flexible programmable transport greatly improves the performance, simplifies the controls, and facilitates scalability. The concept is a departure from classical network thinking. By reducing the complexity of the network core, an economical, reliable, and manageable network with feature-rich edge nodes can be realized. An architecture with recursive ring-based structures provides a high degree of flexibility in bandwidth allocation and is compatible with current transport networks and future all-optical networks.