Development of onboard LPM-based header processing and reactive link selection for optical packet and circuit integrated networks

An optical packet and circuit integrated network (OPCInet) will allow diverse services, enhanced functional flexibility, and efficient energy consumption, as optical packet switching (OPS) and optical circuit switching (OCS) links are provided on the same infrastructure. In this paper, we design and develop a control system consisting of header processing for optical packets, signaling and routing for optical path setup, and wavelength resource control and link switching between OPS and OCS for the efficient use of resources. Our onboard optical packet header processor is capable of 16-bit longest prefix matching by embedding a 0.6W (5% of TCAM technology on the same condition), 200 million search-per-second (equivalent to 100 Gbps) forwarding engine LSI, and a statistical memory LSI for retaining the statistical information of processed headers. Reactive control automatically selects a packet or circuit link according to the statistical traffic information from the header processor and works with signaling for optical paths. We present an experimental demonstration of a new control system using a previously developed OPCInet testbed.