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Signalling end-to-end optical services over multi-domain networks

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Abstract

This paper proposes a new UCLP (User-Controlled LightPath) architecture that offers end-to-end optical services provisioning in a multi-domain network. It also shows the experimental results of our UCLP software tool implemented on the Canarie optical network testbed. This work is motivated by the growing need for end-to-end lightpaths to support high volume data transferring applications such as GridFTP (GRID File Transfer Protocol) and SAN (Storage Area Networks) over multi-domain networks. The main problems encountred while provisioning end-to-end optical service in a multi-domain network are investigated and a review of the different interdomain signalling approaches is provided in comparison with our user-controlled lightpath provisioning approach. Various interdomain signalling approaches are discussed and compared to justify the necessity of signalling methods at the application level for long-duration applications.

Introduction

The amount of traffic transported across optical networks has exploded in recent years, to the point that optics is becoming the de facto technology for both transport networks and high speed data access. New optical networks provide an ideal foundation for profitable policy-based services that meet a large range of data and voice communication needs. In this context, some vendors [1] have advanced proposals for “walled garden” versions of the Internet. Others are exploring virtual private IP networks, deploying centrally managed optical overlay networks, and binding applications to the transport layer. Most of these proposed architectures eliminate or severely restrict many of the Internet’s underlying designs, in particular the end-to-end principle [2]. Another architecture that provides solutions for current challenges without altering with the Internet’s fundamental design is being explored by several network research teams around the world, including Canarie, Inc. This approach involves a new network management paradigm that could provide the robustness and security that commercial customers need. Hence, this new type of wide area network architecture [3], often referred to as “customer-controlled networks”, is becoming increasingly common among large enterprise networks, university research networks, and government departments. Customer-controlled networks are radically different from the traditional centrally-managed networks in that the enterprise does not only manage and control its own internal local area or campus network, but also controls and manages its wide area optical network. The management is feasible assuming responsibility for direct peering and interconnection with other like-minded networks. Today, two of the world’s leading research networks, HEAnet in Ireland and TANET2 in Taiwan, autonomously cross connect to each other through CA*net 4 and using our newly developed User Controlled Lightpath (UCLP) optical service provisioning software.1

This paper focuses on end-to-end optical service provisioning across multiple domains using the customer-controlled approach. This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 briefly reviews the main existing approaches with their imposed technical challenges. We describe in Section 3 the UCLP architecture. Detailed explanation of the end-to-end optical service deployment over a multi-domain network is given in Section 4. Lab experiments on the UCLP software are presented in Section 5 and the performance results are given. Also, our tests and experimentation on the UCLP software performed on Canarie’s network, CA*net4, are presented. Section 6 includes a comparative discussion of inter-domain signalling approaches. Finally, concluding remarks are given in Section 7.

Section snippets

Customer-empowered networks

Typically, user clusters aggregate traffic at the optical network edge. The edge devices support lightpaths that are either statistically provisioned or dynamically signaled [4] across the core optical network. Contrary to the statically-provisioned lightpaths that are suitable for large scale traffic aggregation, dynamically-provisioned lightpaths incur much more complexity in the control plane and the signalling overhead. Since the scale of aggregation decreases as application traffic

User controlled lightpath (UCLP)

Canarie Inc. founded the Canadian network CA*net 3, the world’s first national optical Internet research and education network. CA*net4, which builds on CA*net3, covers the Canadian territory and is composed of multiple ASes. Canarie proposed a user-controlled lightpath provisioning architecture that allows customers or Grid applications to establish end-to-end lightpaths over multiple ASes. AS administrators build up in advance short lightpaths (with pre-configured connections) which traverse

End-to-end optical service deployment

This section presents the different layers of our UCLP architecture. We describe in detail the admission control mechanism and the lightpath reservation over multiple domains.

Device layer: Experimentation and analysis

The device layer consists principally of the LPO I/F, which talks directly to the cross-connect in order to create or break cross-connections. The LPServer uses these operations to setup or release single-domain lightpaths.

End-to-end optical service provisioning challenges

The proposed solutions aim to enable customers to control and manage long haul “Lightpaths” that would be cross connected to other independent autonomous customer controlled and managed networks. UCLP is based on the Grid infrastructure and allow users or applications to provision lightpaths across multiple domains. Moreover, the conception of these solutions takes into account the availability of multi-layered service creation and activation on the optical network. An array of interworking

Conclusions

In this paper, we presented a policy-based signaling architecture for dynamic provisioning of multi-domain lightpaths. The architecture allows each domain to manage its lightpaths independently through domain policies. The created lightpaths conform to these policies and are assigned to customers/applications based on their privilege level. Moreover, customers can reserve lightpaths in advance, so they will be guaranteed to obtain the needed lightpaths.

The generalization of the experimentation

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Bill St Arnaud from Canarie Inc. for his valuable comments. This work was done in the context of the Canarie AAP program. Also, authors would like to thank the students who worked on the UCLP development, namely L.D. Truong and B. Ghandour.

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