An implementation of an OSPF-TE to support GMPLS-controlled all-optical WDM networks

GMPLS-controlled all-optical networks are the promise to handle the increasing volume of IP traffic. The GMPLS routing and signaling protocols, mainly OSPF and RSVP, work in such a way that the route calculation for optical circuits does not take into account the label (lambda) availability. This is not optimal in terms of network usage and blocking probability of new circuits. To deal with this scenario, more efficient RWA algorithms could be used to calculate the route and the wavelength assignment at one time. These RWA engines need to know the optical topology in a way that is not described by the current OSPF standards. This paper proposes Traffic Engineering extensions to the OSPF protocol to enable the GMPLS control plane to take advantage of the most effective RWA classes. A prototype was developed and deployed in an optical-simulated copper-based network to verify its feasibility based on the bandwidth overhead generated in the control plane.