Signaling and Control Procedures Using Generalized MPLS Protocol for IP over an Optical Network

This paper reviews the existing research activities on signaling and control procedures for IP over optical networks. We focus on the IP-centric signaling and control architecture based on the generalized multi-protocol label switching (GMPLS) protocol and analyze various scenarios and technical issues for deploying the IP over an optical network. We analyze the signaling and operations and administration and maintenance requirements for integrating an IP network and an optical network in order to cope with the high bandwidth and poor resource granularity of the optical network, including the optical cross-connect system. On the basis of network architecture and a reference configuration model, we investigate the GMPLS-based control architecture and interconnection model appropriate for controlling IP bandwidth and optical lambda resources. The signaling and control procedure based on GMPLS on optical user-network interface and network-network interface are comparatively investigated to provide the optical lightpath. We also study protection and restoration procedures to protect link failure when it applies to generalized MPLS signaling.