Policy-based lightpath provisioning over federated WDM network domains

Summary form only given. We focus on the novel, to the best of our knowledge still not considered, networking scenario of dynamic end-to-end optical path provisioning where a client network (e.g., IP) have a choice of different optical domains for which a path has to be established. Moreover, we also assume that optical network service providers (NSP) domains can dynamically set-up connections across other optical domains, by "trading resources", thus enhancing their existing infrastructure. To deal with these scenarios we introduce new architectural artefact we refer to as Multi-Provider Federation Interface (MPFI), as a service interface, connecting client networks and optical NSP domains. The MPFI is a multi-point to multi-point interface which aims to unify the concept of the choice on the user-to-network interface (UNI), and the concept of the choice on the network-to-network interface (NNI). Based on this, we have modelled an end-to-end path provisioning on an example of 2-provider optical network domains, with particular, policy-based requirements on service guarantees, and have shown blocking performance.