MPLS over Segmented WDM Optical Packet Switching Networks

Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) is a promising solution for data transport in future all-optical wide area networks. Such networks consist of fibers joined by dynamically controllable cross-connects which provide purely optical transport between pairs of network access stations. Optical packet switching (OPS) is optical switching with the finest granularity. Incoming packets are switched all-optically without being converted to electrical signal. There are two categories of OPS networks. Slotted (synchronous) OPS networks, in which all the packets have the same size and unslotted (asynchronous) OPS networks, where packets may or may not have the same size. In this study we propose to integrate MPLS over slotted OPS networks by aggregating optical packets into a labeled optical burst. The burst has a fixed number of packets (segments). The number of segments in each burst is encoded in the experimental field of the MPLS header.