Abstract

Today's high-capacity optical networks employ finely engineered physical layer transmission to support multi-terabit bandwidths that are routed in circuit-switched architectures. Rapidly increasing multimedia and data service traffic is driving the needs for high-performance and high-utilization networks, far beyond what can be supported on a circuit-switched architecture. A unified networking platform in support of voice, data, and multimedia applications is attractive especially on a high-capacity optical layer. While packetized voice, video, and data services are currently available on wireless, wireline, and optical networks, switching of packetized traffic directly over the optical layer is not yet realized in today's networks. A number of significant challenges such as optical layer contention resolution, buffering, and synchronization have forced optical networks to continue to employ opaque elements that process data in the electronic domain.

On the other hand, recent advances in optical network elements have shown new architectures and new technologies that can potentially overcome part of such challenging problems. Such advances include new optical router architectures exploiting all-optical contention resolution, new understandings in buffering requirements, interplay of electrical edge and optical core routers, all-optical data manipulation techniques, and hybrid optical-electrical technologies.

The Journal of Optical Networking (JON) is soliciting papers for a Feature Issue addressing all aspects of enabling technologies, architectures, and systems design for next generation optical routers. The aim of this feature issue is to promote a new way of rethinking the future optical Internet by disseminating original research on topics including, but not limited to the following:

• Next generation optical router network architectures
• End-to-end network performance and requirements on buffers in optical routers
• Optical router architectures (including synchronous, asynchronous, fixed-length, and variable-length packet switching)
• Contention resolution and arbitration of optical packets
• Optical packet switching fabrics
• Packet buffers and random-access-memory
• Optical packet synchronization and manipulation
• Comparison of all-optical vs. all-electrical vs. hybrid approaches to optical routers
• Edge router functions
• Active congestion management and grooming

To submit to this special issue, follow the normal procedure for submission to JON, indicating "Feature Issue: OR" in the "Comments" field of the online submission form. For all other questions relating to this feature issue, please send an e-mail to jon@osa.org, subject line "Feature Issue: OR."

Additional information can be found on the JON website: http://www.osa-jon.org/journal/jon/author.cfm.

Submission Deadline: 1 March 2008

© 2007 Optical Society of America

Traffic management framework for optical routers with small buffers

Arvinder Pal Wander, Anujan Varma, and Marina Thottan
J. Opt. Netw. 7(11) 958-976 (2008)

Optical Router Control Architecture and Contention Resolution Algorithms Capable of Asynchronous, Variable-Length Packet Switching

Haijun Yang, Zhong Pan, Venkatesh Akella, Chen-Nee Chuah, and S. J. B. Yoo
J. Opt. Commun. Netw. 2(9) 745-759 (2010)

Analysis of Large-Scale Multi-Stage All-Optical Packet Switching Routers

Q. Xu, H. Rastegarfar, Y. Ben M’Sallem, A. Leon-Garcia, S. LaRochelle, and L. A. Rusch
J. Opt. Commun. Netw. 4(5) 412-425 (2012)

Impact of SDN on Optical Router Bypass

Fahad A. Ghonaim, Thomas E. Darcie, and Sudhakar Ganti
J. Opt. Commun. Netw. 10(4) 332-343 (2018)

Experimental Analysis of an All-Optical Packet Router

C. Reis, G. Parca, M. Bougioukos, A. Maziotis, S. Pinna, G. Giannoulis, H. Brahmi, P. André, N. Calabretta, V. Vercesi, G. Berrettini, C. Kouloumentas, A. Bogoni, T. Chattopadhyay, D. Erasme, H. Avramopoulos, and A. Teixeira
J. Opt. Commun. Netw. 6(7) 629-634 (2014)