OPTICAL SWITCHING NETWORK

• US 20120008945A1
• Filed: 04/03/2011
• Published: 01/12/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/08/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Original Assignee: NEC Laboratories America Inc (NEC Corporation)
• Inventors: Singla, Ankit, Singh, Atul, Ramachandran, Kishore, Xu, Lei, Zhang, Yueping
• Granted Patent: US 8,705,954 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 398/49
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/0204 Broadcast and select arrangements, e.g. with an optical splitter at the input before adding or dropping
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/0205 Select and combine arrangements, e.g. with an optical combiner at the output after adding or dropping
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/0212 using optical switches or wavelength selective switches [WSS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/0217 Multi-degree architectures, e.g. having a connection degree greater than two
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/0257 Wavelength assignment algorithms
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 14/0267 Optical signaling or routing

Abstract

Systems and methods are disclosed to communicate over an optical network by using hop-by-hop routing over an optical network; and dynamically constructing a network topology.

Claims

1. An all-optical transmission system, comprising:

an optical switch matrix;

a plurality of optical components communicating over the optical switch matrix; and

a top of rack (ToR) switch coupled to each optical components, each ToR communicating with the optical components and with other ToR switches.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the optical switch matrix performs hop-to-hop routing.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein traffic that cannot be provisioned with a direct end-to-end circuit is routed to a destination by traversing multiple hops or TOR switches.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the optical switch matrix comprises a micro-electrical

5. The system of claim 1, wherein each TOR switch is coupled to servers.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein each TOR switch receives traffic destined for servers located in its own rack, and forwards transit traffic targeted at servers residing in other racks.

7. The system of claim 1, comprising an inter-ToR port coupled to transceivers associated with a fixed wavelength for sending and receiving data.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the optical components support on-demand provisioning of connectivity and capacity where required in a network.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the optical component comprises a Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS) and a circulator.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the WSS partitions a set of wavelengths coming in through a common port among available wavelength ports.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the optical component comprises a send circuit and a receive circuit.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the send circuit and receive circuit capacities are independent of each other.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein each of the send circuit and receive circuit is associated with a unique wavelength to use wavelength division multiplexing (WDM).

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the send circuit comprises:

a ToR transceiver to receive data;

a multiplexer coupled to the ToR transceiver;

a Wavelength Selective Switch (WSS) coupled to the multiplexer; and

a circulator coupled to the WSS.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the receive circuit comprises:

a circulator coupled to the optical switch matrix;

a coupler coupled to the circulator;

a demultiplexer coupled to the coupler; and

a ToR transceiver coupled to the demultiplexer.

16. The system of claim 1, comprising a network manager coupled to the optical component.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the network manager adjusts network topology.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the network manager assigns pairs with heavy communications to direct links.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the network manager identifies routing paths and sends all the ToRs these paths in order to set up their routing tables.

20. The system of claim 16, wherein the network manager determines the capacity demand on each link and a module 216 then determines the wavelength assignment scheme.

21. The system of claim 1, wherein the optical switch matrix comprises micro-electrical-mechanical-systems (MEMS) switches to route optical signals by mechanically adjusting micro mirrors.

22. The system of claim 1, wherein the optical switch matrix comprises bipartite switching matrices where any input port can be connected to any output port.

23. The system of claim 1, comprising a supplementary electrical network or wireless network coupled to the optical transmission system.