Fine granular architecture for optical metro transport network

Abstract

Facing a tremendous IP traffic growth that does not bring significant revenues, ISPs need to improve network efficiency. They work with equipment manufacturers on solutions to improve synergies between the packet and the optical layer. If the available IP & Optical convergence solutions answer today's issues, they do not help handling the traffic pattern changes that Over The Top (OTT) players' content distribution strategy may induce. This paper proposes a fine granular packet transport architecture for optical Metro networks, which leverages on functions provided by Next Generation WDM (NG WDM) platforms, and Sub-Lambda Photonically Switched Networks (SLPSN) technology. The operation principles on which it is based have been demonstrated, and the features it relies on, already exist. Its implementation would only require a deeper standardization of the WDM layer and software developments. First results show remarkable improvement of the proposed solution in terms of bandwidth efficiency compared to classical IPoWDM.