Optical burst switching for metropolitan area networks

The fast evolution of networks has been continuously driven by new advances in enabling technologies, as well as the growth of Internet traffic. Optical burst switching provides high throughput, high-bandwidth utilization, and low transmission latency. These characteristics make it an excellent candidate for next-generation metropolitan area networks, which will be much more dynamic and demanding than today´s networks. In this article we not only discuss some of the architectural involved in the design of optical burst switching networks, but also present readers a high-level picture of how such networks could be integrated with other network segments, to provide users end-to-end connectivity with performance and simplicity.