An optical UNI architecture for the GIGA project testbed network

The main interests of the GIGA Project are the deployment of Optical Network Technology, Network Services and Applications, Experimental Telecommunication Services and Scientific Applications. In the context of this Project, our research group has been working in the design of a IP/WDM Control Plane to integrate the IP/MPLS Client Network with the Optical Transport Network (WDM), according to the GMPLS and ASON specifications. We propose a UNI (User Network Interface) architecture providing an independent signaling protocol to integrate the Client and the Optical Transport Networks. The proposed UNI architecture maintains unchanged the client and transport networks signaling semantics for the GIGA testbed network. The paper describes how the designed architecture supports the independence of the signaling protocol and presents the prototype implemented to validate the architecture.