Scalable Designs for All-Optical Packet-Switching Nodes

New services and high bandwidth demanding applications will dramatically change the operator´s requirements with respect to future network architectures and topologies. The advent of bandwidth-intensive video applications will stimulate the design of high throughput and flexible network architectures. In this network evolution All-optical Label Swapping (AOLS) can play a key role. AOLS is a key functional type of optical burst/packet switching that intends to solve the potential mismatch between fibre capacity and routing burst forwarding capacity. This paper discusses how the original AOLS-node can be adapted to be more scalable. The new node designs are based on wavelength striping and the use of one control wavelength which transports only the labels. Then, for the remaining data wavelengths (transport of payloads), AOLS-blocks with limited intelligence can be installed.