Bypassing Route Strategy for Optical Circuits in OPS-Based Data Center Networks

In optical packet switching (OPS)-based data center networks (DCNs), it is preferred to set up temporal optical circuit switching (OCS) paths for large-data transmission that requires high reliability. However, inappropriate OCS path selection could severely affect the original OPS traffic. This is because an OCS path may break the network topology and cause OPS packet circulations. We propose to maintain bypassing routes for every link of the OCS path when it is established. Then, the OPS packets can bypass the OCS links by being deflected to the bypassing routes. Therefore, this method facilitates the coexistence of OCS in OPS-based DCNs. Numerical simulations demonstrate the benefit achieved by our proposal compared with non-bypassing-route scenarios.