Hierarchical Inter-Domain Routing in Optical DWDM Networks

As DWDM technology proliferates there is a growing need to address distributed inter-domain lightpath provisioning issues. Although inter-domain provisioning has been well-studied for packet/cell- switching networks, the wavelength dimension presents many additional challenges. This paper develops a novel hierarchical GMPLS-based framework for provisioning all-optical and opto-electronic multi-domain DWDM networks. The scheme adapts topology abstraction schemes to aggregate domain-level state to improve routing scalability and lower inter-domain blocking. Related inter-domain lightpath RWA and signaling schemes are also tabled. Performance analysis results are presented along with directions for future work.