Resource reservation schemes for synchronous traffic in cooperative clustered OBS networks

Optical backbone networks transport both synchronous and asynchronous traffic. The synchronous traffic is from legacy telecommunication networks still employing legacy SONET/SDH, or SONET/SDH over WDM equipment. In the WDM layer, optical circuit switching (OCS) has been widely deployed, but can be potentially bandwidth inefficient. Optical burst switching (OBS) has been proposed as an alternative to OCS that uses statistical multiplexing at a sub-wavelength granularity, but for the time constrained and loss intolerant traffic this switching paradigm is still not efficient. This article presents both open and closed ended in-advanced periodic resource reservation protocols that fulfill the QoS requirements of synchronous traffic. The proposed reservation protocols, called C2OBS Synchronous Resource Reservation Scheme (C2OBS-SRR) provide appropriate resources for SONET/SDH traffic in a Clustered Cooperative Optical Burst Switching (C2OBS) network architecture. In the C2OBS-SRR the synchronous traffic is offered a circuit like service without two way end-to-end reservation, while still benefiting from the high level of statistical multiplexing of an optical burst switching network. The C2OBS-SRR is also compared with both OCS and classical JET OBS.