Multiwavelength optical networking management and control

This paper describes the network management research done by the Network Control and Management (NC&M) Task under the Multi-wavelength Optical Networking (MONET) Program. MONET is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) of the U.S. Government Department of Defense, with participation from Telcordia Technologies, AT&T, Lucent Technologies, several government agencies and regional Bell Operating Companies. MONET's vision is to develop technologies needed for a flexible, reliable, high-capacity, high-performance, cost-effective national scale optical network based on the multi-wavelength fiber-optic technology. As an important component in realizing this vision, the MONET program includes the architecture and design of a prototype network control and management system that will manage MONET's reconfigurable wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) all-optical network. The primary objectives of the prototype research work are to develop the architecture and framework for managing national-scale. Transparent reconfigurable WDM optical networks, and to demonstrate the feasibility of the NC&M prototype system in a field experiment network in Washington, DC. This prototype system will allow the program participants to conduct experiments and gain experience in the management and operations of reconfigurable optical networks. This paper describes the features and capabilities of the prototype system, addressing issues such as management architecture, information model, interoperability and algorithms of the prototype management system. We also relate some of our experience in testing, installing and using the prototype system in the MONET network.