Ring Speed Restoration and Optical Core Mesh Networks

Abstract Optical mesh networks using intelligent optical cross-connects are the choice for the next generation optical core. Mesh networks can be designed for fast and guaranteed recovery from single failures and can be designed to protect traffic more efficiently via shared mesh restoration. In this paper, we present a mesh restoration architecture for the optical core. The architecture provides for all the advantages of mesh networks and achieves ring-like restoration performance. Furthermore, the protocol allows for two types of restoration depending on the application needs: dedicated mesh protection that guarantees sub-50 ms. restoration latency and shared mesh restoration that can restore services within 50 ms. to a couple hundred ms., which is sufficient for the majority of the voice-band and other streaming services.