Requirements and Architectural Options for an All-Optical Network

Dr. Sri Nathan
Vice President, Network Architecture
Qtera Corporation

Description:
'IP Over WDM' concept is becoming extremely attractive to many network operators nevertheless there is no clear definition of this concept. This presentation will attempt to define and provide requirements for such a network. Although there are many different architectures for long-haul backbones, there are four models which are considered to be the primary alternatives to the traditional SONET ring: Optical Rings, Electrical Restoration, Layer-3 Restoration and SONET 1+1 Restoration. Each has its merits and drawbacks, depending on the nature of the traffic on the network. We will examine these architectures assuming that the majority of service providers' backbone networks will be data-centric, and thus susceptible to the conditions such as unpredictable growth, network churn etc.

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