Service-oriented Light-trail Systems in WDM Optical Networks

The light-trail is a new solution to efficiently support IP traffic over WDM networks. A light-trail is a set of nodes connected by optical fibres where all nodes along the light-trail can send and receive signals in a time-multiplexing manner. Given a light-trail's efficiency in bandwidth utilization, capability in supporting optical multicast, and potential in minimizing the service composition delay, it is considered as a strong candidate to support service composition in a service-oriented WDM network. The fundamental research issues in the light-trail field include light-trail design, light-trail routing, MAC protocol design in a light-trail, and light-trail fault tolerance design. Service composition brings new challenges to all these fundamental research issues and makes it necessary to revisit each to efficiently support service composition in a service-oriented WDM network using light-trail technology.This project highlights the new challenges that service composition imposes to each fundamental research issue in the light-trail research area, and aims to provide efficient solutions to better support service composition in a service-oriented WDM optical network using light-trail technology. The work opens a new area in service-oriented networking. It will provide an integrated solution to satisfy the agility requirement from the applications through service-oriented networking architecture and improve the bandwidth utilization in WDM networks through the light-trail solution.