Optimal crosstalk monitoring and identification method for All-Optical Networks

An all-optical network (AON) is a network where the user-network interface is optical and the data does undergo optical to electrical conversion within the network. AONs are attractive because they promise very high rates, flexible switching and broad application support. However optical performance monitoring and optical network management are essential in building a reliable, high-capacity, and service-differentiation enabled all-optical network. One of the serious problems with transparency is the fact that optical crosstalk is additive, and thus the aggregate effect of crosstalk over a whole AON may be more nefarious than a single point of crosstalk. Attacks can spread rapidly through the network, causing additional awkward failures and triggering multiple undesirable alarms, they must be detected and identified at any point in the network where they may occur. This results in the continuous monitoring and identification of the impairments becoming challenging in the event of transmission failures. However, a simple and reliable signal quality monitoring method does not exist at present. In this paper we present a new method for attack identification and localization in networks offering the benefit of relaxing the high cost and complexity.