Optical Corridor Routing Protocols

The scalability of routing and resource advertisement protocols is a key issue in large optical networks. A commonly used solution is based on the hierarchical approach adopted in IP/MPLS-TE networks, i.e., multiple areas or autonomous systems are pre-established to contain the geographical scope of the resource advertisement protocols and the related routing information. With arbitrarily pre-established areas, routing decision might be sub-optimal. Thus, special care must be paid by the network designer to subdivide effectively the network into areas. This paper presents and discusses an alternative routing technique that attempts to improve both optimality and scalability of routing and resource advertisement protocols without requiring the use of manually pre-established areas.