GMPLS-Based Photonic Burst Switching (PBS) Architecture for Optical Networks

Photonic burst switching (PBS) architecture with variable time slot provisioning supporting high-speed bursty data transmission within optical enterprise networks is presented as follows: First, the edge and switching node architecture for in-band and out-of-band signaling is defined. Second, we introduce: I) a generalized multiprotocol label switching (GMPLS) based PBS software architecture in terms of control and data-plane operations that is extended to enable the PBS optical interfaces with the software building blocks for edge and switching nodes; II) an adaptive PBS MAC layer functionality and framing of multiple generic payloads. The integration of the proposed PBS network architecture with GMPLS-based software architecture should provide the means for robust and efficient optical transport of bandwidth-demanding applications within enterprise networks.