Directionless optical architecture and highly available network and photonic resilience methods
First Claim
1. A directionless reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) node for high availability between switch or router ports, the node communicatively coupled to an optical network via at least two links, the node comprising:
- a directionless switch, including one or more switches, connected to each of the at least two links and configured to selectively route a lightpath from a client device to any of the at least two links for protection thereof;
wherein the directionless switch is located between the at least two links and the client device, and wherein the client device is not hard-wired to any of the at least two links; and
wherein the directionless switch is configured with a single input/output for the client device and the protection is 1;
1 optical protection.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
A directionless optical architecture is described for reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs) and wavelength selective switches (WSSs). The directionless architecture utilizes a directionless wavelength switch coupled between client devices and ROADMs/WSSs to eliminate the need to hard-wire client devices to a wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) network. Accordingly, client device connections can be automatically routed without manual intervention to provide a highly resilient network design which can recover route diversity during failure scenarios. Additionally, the present invention minimizes deployments of costly optical transceivers while providing superior resiliency. Further, the present invention couples the directionless optical architecture and associated optical protection mechanisms with existing mesh restoration schemes to provide additional resiliency.
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Citations
13 Claims
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1. A directionless reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) node for high availability between switch or router ports, the node communicatively coupled to an optical network via at least two links, the node comprising:
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a directionless switch, including one or more switches, connected to each of the at least two links and configured to selectively route a lightpath from a client device to any of the at least two links for protection thereof; wherein the directionless switch is located between the at least two links and the client device, and wherein the client device is not hard-wired to any of the at least two links; and wherein the directionless switch is configured with a single input/output for the client device and the protection is 1;
1 optical protection. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
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5. A directionless switch method for high availability between switch or router ports, the method comprising:
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receiving at least two lightpaths from a client device; and selectively routing the at least two lightpaths to separate degrees of a reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) node, wherein each of the separate degrees provides a link to an optical network; wherein the client device is not hard-wired to any of the separate degrees; and wherein the receiving is from one of (i) a single input/output for the client device and the protection is 1;
1 optical protection and (ii) dual inputs/outputs for the client device and the protection is 1+1 or 1;
1. - View Dependent Claims (6, 7)
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8. A directionless reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) node for high availability between switch or router ports, the node communicatively coupled to an optical network via at least two links, the node comprising:
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a directionless switch, including one or more switches, connected to each of the at least two links and configured to selectively route a lightpath from a client device to any of the at least two links for protection thereof; wherein the directionless switch is located between the at least two links and the client device, and wherein the client device is not hard-wired to any of the at least two links; and wherein the directionless switch is configured with dual inputs/outputs for the client device and the protection is 1+1 or 1;
1. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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Specification