3rd International ICST Conference on Broadband Communications, Networks, and Systems

Research Article

SLIP-IN Architecture: A new Hybrid Optical Switching Scheme

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1109/BROADNETS.2006.4374366,
        author={Kostas Ramantas and Kostas Christodoulopoulos and Kyriakos Vlachos and Erik Van Breusegem and Mario Pickavet},
        title={SLIP-IN Architecture: A new Hybrid Optical Switching Scheme},
        proceedings={3rd International ICST Conference on Broadband Communications, Networks, and Systems},
        publisher={IEEE},
        proceedings_a={BROADNETS},
        year={2006},
        month={10},
        keywords={},
        doi={10.1109/BROADNETS.2006.4374366}
    }
    
  • Kostas Ramantas
    Kostas Christodoulopoulos
    Kyriakos Vlachos
    Erik Van Breusegem
    Mario Pickavet
    Year: 2006
    SLIP-IN Architecture: A new Hybrid Optical Switching Scheme
    BROADNETS
    IEEE
    DOI: 10.1109/BROADNETS.2006.4374366
Kostas Ramantas1,2, Kostas Christodoulopoulos1,2, Kyriakos Vlachos1,2,*, Erik Van Breusegem1,3, Mario Pickavet1,3
  • 1: member IEEE
  • 2: Computer Engineering & Informatics Depart. and Research Academic Computer Technology, Institute, University of Patras, GR26500, Rio, Patra, Greece, (tel: + 30 2610 996990, Fax: +30 2610 969007)
  • 3: Dept. of Information Technology (INTEC), IBBT-Ghent University -IMEC, Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 41, B-9000 Gent, Belgium
*Contact email: vlachos@ceid.upatras.gr

Abstract

In this paper, we present a new hybrid switching architecture, termed as SLIP-IN, that combines electronic packet/burst with optical circuit switching. SLIP-IN architecture takes advantages of the pre-transmission idle periods of optical lightpaths and slips into them packets or bursts of packets. In optical circuit switching (wavelength-routing) networks, capacity is immediately hard-reserved upon the arrival of a setup message, but is only used after a round-trip time delay. This idle period is significant for optical multi-gigabit networks and can be used to transmit traffic of a lower class of service. In this paper, we present the main features and dependencies of the proposed hybrid switching architecture, and further we perform a detailed evaluation by conducting network wide simulation experiments on the NSFnet backbone topology. For this purpose, we have developed an extensive network simulator, where the basic features of the architecture were modeled. The extensive network study revealed that SLIP-IN architecture can achieve and sustain an adequate data rate with a finite worst case delay.