To reduce the cost of fault management in all-optical networks, it is a promising approach to detect the degradation of optical signal quality solely at the terminal points of all-optical monitoring paths. The all-optical monitoring paths must be routed so that all single-link failures can be localized using route information of monitoring paths where signal quality degradation is detected. However, route computation for the all-optical monitoring paths that satisfy the above condition is time consuming. This paper proposes a procedure for deriving the lower bounds of the required number of monitoring paths to localize all single-link failures, and proposes an efficient monitoring path computation method based on the derived lower bounds. The proposed method repeats the route computation for the monitoring paths until feasible routes can be found, while the assumed number of monitoring paths increases, starting from the lower bounds. With the proposed method, the minimum number of monitoring paths with the overall shortest routes can be obtained quickly by solving several small-scale integer linear programming problems when the possible terminal nodes of monitoring paths are arbitrarily given. Thus, the proposed method can minimize the required number of monitors for detecting the degradation of signal quality and the total overhead traffic volume transferred through the monitoring paths.

We describe a concept and realization of distance-adaptive (DA) resource allocation in spectrum-sliced elastic optical path network (SLICE). We modify the modulation format and cross-connection bandwidth of individual fixed-bit rate optical paths to optimize performance with respect to transmission distance. The shorter paths are allocated a smaller amount of resources which allows reducing the spectrum occupied by the channel. We show in calculation a reduction in required spectral resources of more than 60% when compared to the traditional traffic allocation schemes based on ITU-T grid. The concept is verified experimentally.

All-optical switching is of considerable interest, since it enables the construction of large-capacity networks with protocol- and bit-rate-independent transmission. In this paper, we determine the most desirable of three all-optical architectures for a backbone network, by comparing the following architectures: the wavelength-routed network, the slotted wavelength-routed network, and the optical burst switching network. After proposing an optical path accommodation algorithm that minimizes the total fiber length, we evaluate the total network cost in order to compare the availability of the first two architectures. We then compare the architectures in terms of the burst blocking probability in order to clarify the effectiveness of the third architecture.

We evaluate resolution models for resource allocation in a GMPLS distributed control plane for heterogeneous all-optical networks. In a practical regional-to-backbone network environment, the local resolution model is advantageous in resource utilization, protocol compatibility and scalability. We demonstrate a lookup procedure, which inter-works with OSPF-TE and RSVP-TE protocols and allocates resources in the local resolution model.

We consider the routing for a multicast in a WDM all-optical network. We prove a min-max theorem on the number of wavelengths necessary for routing a multicast. Based on the min-max theorem, we propose an efficient on-line algorithm for routing a multicast.

We report on the demonstration of a fast restorable all-optical WDM network. This network consisted of four 44 optical cross-connects (OXC's) and four in-line optical amplifiers. These OXC's monitored not only the status of various network elements and quality of optical signals but also the optical path of each channel continuously. Thus, this network could automatically identify the causes of most network failures. For the fast restoration, we implemented these OXC's by using thermo-optic polymer switches (switching time: < 1.5 ms) and used hardware interrupt when LOS was detected. In addition, we used a pre-planned routing table made by using a simple heuristic routing and wavelength assignment algorithm. The results show that this network could be restored from any single link failure within 6 ms even when the restoration path was 400 km.

We report on the demonstration of a fast restorable all-optical WDM network. This network consisted of four 44 optical cross-connects (OXC's) and four in-line optical amplifiers. These OXC's monitored not only the status of various network elements and quality of optical signals but also the optical path of each channel continuously. Thus, this network could automatically identify the causes of most network failures. For the fast restoration, we implemented these OXC's by using thermo-optic polymer switches (switching time: < 1.5 ms) and used hardware interrupt when LOS was detected. In addition, we used a pre-planned routing table made by using a simple heuristic routing and wavelength assignment algorithm. The results show that this network could be restored from any single link failure within 6 ms even when the restoration path was 400 km.

This paper proposes a fault tolerant optical crossconnect (FTOXC) which can tolerate link, channel, and internal optical switch failures via spare optical channels, extra input/output (I/O) ports for an optical switch, and associated wavelength converters. It also proposes a fault tolerant wavelength routing algorithm (FTWRA) which is used in the normal and the restored state. The FTOXC and FTWRA can be applied to any all-optical network and can recover many types of failures. FTOXC can configure the number of working and spare channels in each output link based on the traffic demand. Two formulations in this paper can be used to determine the optimal settings of channels. A global optimal setting of working and spare channels in each link can be found by formulating the problem as an integer linear program (ILP). In addition, the number of working and spare channels in each link can be dynamically adjusted according to the traffic loads and the system reliability requirements. The tradeoff between these two conflicting objectives is analyzed by the Markov decision process (MDP).