GMPLS-based photonic multilayer router (Hikari router) architecture: an overview of traffic engineering and signaling technology

A new extended signaling and traffic engineering method for the GMPLS-based photonic and electrical multilayer router (Hikari router) is proposed. The method allows dynamic optical network management and photonic signal recovery, such as regeneration, reshaping, etc., to be realized adaptively. Wavelength conversion is also adaptive, which reduces network cost. Multilayer traffic engineering, which yields the dynamic cooperation of IP and photonic layers, is described to provide IP services cost effectively. To realize multilayer traffic engineering, we propose the OSPF extension, which advertises both the number of total wavelengths and the number of unused wavelengths, and the RSVP-TE extension, which minimizes the number of wavelength conversions needed. In addition, this paper proposes a heuristics-based multilayer topology design scheme that uses IP traffic measurements in a generalized multi-protocol label switch (GMPLS). The proposed scheme yields the optical label switch path (OLSP) network topology, that is, OLSP placement, that minimizes network cost, in response to fluctuations in IP traffic demand. In other words, the OLSP network topology is dynamically reconfigured to match IP traffic demand. Networks are reconfigured by the proposed scheme so as to utilize network resources in the most cost effective manner.