Invited Paper On Archetecture and Limitation of Optical Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) Networks Using Optical-Orthogonal-Code (OOC)/Wavelength Label

To accommodate the explosive packet-based data traffic in WDM networks, intelligent optical routing and switching are required in optical transport networks. Optical multiprotocol label switching networks emerged to meet this demand. In this paper, different schemes for implementing an OMPLS network are introduced. An optical MPLS network using OOC/wavelengths as labels is proposed. Based on an all-optical code converter, the architecture of the optical core router is demonstrated. The fundamental limits on scalability of the proposed core router, namely the label capacity, and the blocking probability of the label switched path setup are investigated, and closed-form solutions are derived.  2002 Elsevier Science (USA)