All Optical Network Switching: A New Scheme for QoS Provision and Virtual Memory Control

To provide contention resolution and QoS management while allowing controllable delaying of optical traffics, we effectively designed a node architecture suitable for optical packet and burst switching. The proposed architecture is based on a set of novel traffic engineering protocols providing QoS guarantees and allowing burst transmission, admission control, contention resolution, and real-time congestion control. The architecture also includes the design of a virtual optical memory based on Bragg gratings and optical fiber components. The virtual memory allows delaying a packet flow for a relatively long period of time. It also allows the packet flow to leave the memory almost immediately after a decision is made.