Just-in-time signaling for WDM optical burst switching networks

We describe the architecture, design, and implementation of a novel just-in-time (JIT) signaling protocol for optical burst switching (OBS) in wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical networks. The JIT-OBS paradigm is designed for ultra-low-latency unidirectional transport of data-bursts across an optical network. It combines the desirable features of circuit-switching and packet-switching. It features out-of-band control signal processing that eliminates buffering of data-burst at intermediate nodes, while minimizing the setup time, and maximizing the cross-connect bandwidth efficiency. We motivate and describe the architecture of JIT signaling, and analyze its basic performance. We present the detailed signaling message design and discuss the rationale and considerations that went into this design. We describe and examine various scenarios that illustrate the operations of the JIT signaling protocol (JIT-SP) in connection establishment and teardown. Finally, we describe and summarize the JIT signaling software prototype in the Washington, DC Testbed network implemented under the MONET project.