The MPLS WG Archive

[Darren Freeland <darren.freeland@alten.co.uk>]

Hi Shun,

Shun Yao wrote:

> I believe Darren was referring to all-optical ~circuit~ switch, not packet
> switch.

Yes, that's what I was referring to.  How will G-MPLS run on an optical switch
with MEMs technology for example (indeed any fabric that is transparent to user
plane traffic).  Still haven't heard any real answers from vendors.  Does this
mean that there's a number of vendors building transparent optical switches, but
they're not sure how they will control them?  ;)

Vendors, if it's a proprietary thing that you don't want to share with the
exploder list, please feel free to mail me offline with some info!

Thanks,
Darren.

>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-mpls@UU.NET [mailto:owner-mpls@UU.NET]On Behalf Of Alec
> > Myers
> > Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 11:34 AM
> > To: 'mpls@uu.net'
> > Cc: Darren Freeland
> > Subject: Re: G-MPLS on all-optical switches?
> >
> >
> > Bearing in mind:
> >
> > 1. The crudity of pure optical memory (fibre delay lines)
> > 2. The lack of pure-optical logic
> > 3. The lack of a fast (packet rate) wavelength switching technology
> > 4. The delay in line clock-recovery between differing
> > transmitter/receivers
> > pairs at the start of each packet
> > 5. The difficulty in dynamically recovering from non-linear effects in
> > optical paths whose length varies per-packet
> >
> > I wouldn't expect to see a real FULLY optical switch any time soon.
> >
> > There are a few papers around that describe possible control
> > schemes, but
> > they are all rather crude, and make only passing reference to MPLS. If
> > you're interested I can forward the references.
> >
> > -A
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Darren Freeland" <darren.freeland@alten.co.uk>
> > To: <mpls@UU.NET>
> > Cc: <ip-optical@lists.bell-labs.com>
> > Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 2:24 PM
> > Subject: G-MPLS on all-optical switches?
> >
> >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > Can any vendor give me some information on exactly how they
> > intend to
> > > run G-MPLS on FULLY optical switches?  For the control
> > signals, will you
> > > use optical splitters or the like to tap off some of the lightpath
> > > inband (amplifying to compensate for the power loss), or
> > will you use an
> > > outband network?
> > >
> > > Any info much appreciated ....
> > >
> > > Darren.
> > >
> > >
> >