CONTROL PLANE SOFTWARE FOR NEXT GENERATION NETWORKS

White Paper

The Future Optical Control Plane

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 The Future Optical Control Plane

Technology Evolution

Advances in optical networking are offering service providers the opportunity to re-engineer their
core networks over the next several years. Technologies such as Dense Wave Division
Multiplexing (DWDM) offer almost unlimited bandwidth and increasing re-use of fiber. The
challenge for equipment vendors is to provide control plane intelligence that will enable their
service provider customers to rapidly and flexibly provision and create new services. The
adaptation of IP routing techniques combined with optical enhancements to Multi-Protocol Label
Switching (MPLS) – often known as MPLambdaS is a key mechanism in harnessing powerful
hardware capabilities with an intelligent control plane.

The evolution of intelligent optical devices is ultimately driven by the economics of service
provider requirements and an interesting dynamic is evolving between traditional data (IP)
technology and new optical standards. This if being driven by the proposal to use a common set of
standards, such as IP routing and MPLS protocols in both the classical IP and optical control
planes. Ultimately, this will offer the broadest range of innovative possibilities.

Network Economics

While optical advances are drastically reducing the economics of the core, all estimates concur that
less than 20% of the fiber in the ground is actually lit, and most that can benefit from new
generations of equipment, which can deploy more wavelengths per fiber. Aside from the technical
challenges of adopting new technology, the primary motivating factor is economic. Until large
amounts of bandwidth can effectively be deployed to the residential market, the demand simply
does not exist to fully exploit the potential of intelligent optical networks. Mass deployment of high
speed broadband access networks, which generate, or enable the generation, of substantial revenues
and profitability are necessary to facilitate full scale adoption of next generation optical
technology.

Recent attempts to deploy broadband access networks, through the use of Digital subscriber Line
(DSL) technology have been a noticeable failure. The demise of the Competitive Local Exchange
Carriers (CLECs) attests to this fact. It is clear that copper is becoming limited in its ability to
deliver the access speeds required by advanced broadband services, so the extension of optical
technology into the access network is becoming and increasingly interesting proposition. The
access challenges are very different from those in the core. Ultimately, each access point is
delivered to a single user, so cost becomes a primary factor. In the core, a single fiber leverages
many OC48 or OC192 connections, which themselves carry multiple users. Upgrading the access
network is therefore a costly proposition and requires extensive use of multiplexing to drive the
economics.

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It seems probable that fiber can economically be laid close to the curb, or residential neighborhood,
and existing copper used for the last segment of the connection. The application of Passive Optical
Networking (PON) is viewed as a low cost option in this area. Alternatives exist, such as the
current extension of the cable television networks and the possible deployment of wireless
technology, which may alter technology dynamics in measure, but assuming that broadband build
out will occur, the interaction of packet (IP) technology and an intelligent optical control plane is
critical.

Emerging Optical Control Plane

As technologies such as PON are used to bring optical networking closer to the end user, the
opportunity exists to create network intelligence at the optical layer. This leads to the interesting
question of how much intelligence is actually required at the IP layer ?

Of the many alternatives, it seems likely that PON access networks in the USA will be based on
ATM, the technology of choice for the Regional Bell Operating Companies’ (RBOCs) build out of
broadband access. This will not prevent MPLS from being deployed as an overlay to an ATM-
PON (APON) network, or subsequently using MPLS signaling as an alternative to ATM, but still
using the underlying ATM cell based transport mechanism. Initially, however, it is safe to assume
that MPLS, whether applied to classical IP or optical networking, will operate in core networks
and not in the access layers (figure 1).

IP
MPLS
O-UNI GMPLS

ATM Optical (packet)

Service
Point Website

Broadband Core Optical

Access Network (A-PON) Network(s)

Figure 1 - Emerging Network Infrastructure

A sophisticated optical control plane, and its ability to be adopted by the service provider
community is becoming a pivotal issue for the evolution of new generations of equipment. A
classical IP control plane will always remain, but as the optical layer begins to provide many of the
features of routing and signaling currently performed at the packet layer, then the importance of
current classical techniques may diminish over time, or be subsumed by the optical layer. IP
networking will continue to utilize full mesh networks to deliver performance and scalability, and it
may appear that IP has simply “swapped” an underlying ATM infrastructure for one that is
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optical. If there is no relationship between the IP overlay and the transport layer, as there is with
ATM, then the need for a strong IP layer still exists. However, if the optical control plane utilizes
many of the techniques applied at the IP layer then there is clearly a synergistic relationship, which,
may lead to long- term optimizations.

The intelligent optical control plane and the interplay between classical IP services is the backdrop
for much of the standards related activity in both the IETF routing area and the in the Optical
Interworking Forum (OIF). In the IETF, this work focuses on adapting existing routing technology
(OSPF) and using the principles of MPLS to create the basis of an optical control plane, a set of
Generalized MPLS (GMPLS) standards. This work has been progressing for several months, but it
requires some radical thinking and still has a considerable way to progress to consensus and
standardization. Many companies are contributing to the standards process, but some have opted to
implement proprietary routing and signaling mechanisms, based on the concepts of GMPLS, which
enable the deployment of single vendor networks, and indeed, may form a market strategy to lock
in service provider customers. Whether such a strategy is viable in the long term will be dictated by
the service provider community and its willingness to accept proprietary solutions.

Recognizing that not all market segments require participation in a full routing and signaling
optical control plane, the OIF is developing an Optical-User Network Interface (O-UNI )
specification, which will enable devices to request services from a core optical network. This also
addresses the issue of enabling multi-vendor inter-working when the core optical network is a
single vendor solution with proprietary routing and signaling in the control plane.

Optical Control Plane Developments

The optical control plane is dealing with routing and signaling through the physical layers of a
network. The GMPLS standards deal with the range of distinct differences particular to optical
networking, which were never envisioned when the original classical MPLS standards were
developed.

Classical IP makes the assumption that control plane traffic and data plane traffic flow together
between neighbors. With photonic technology this assumption is far from guaranteed. It would
mean that every optical interface would have to embed a control channel, which would have to be
decoded by each device. For purely photonic devices this would be extremely onerous, and may
impose severe limitations on SONET/SDH equipment and Opto-Elecectrical-Opto (OEO)
switches. The solution is to provide the option for an out of band control channel (figure 2).

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 Management Plane

Out of band
Signaling network Optical Control Plane

Inband signaling
Using Lambdas
(Sonet/SDH STS etc)

GMPLS Optical UNI

signalling (O-UNI)
Optical Network

Figure 2 - Optical Control Plane Options

An out of band control channel, which must be bi-directional, introduces the problem of how
connectivity is determined between two adjacent neighbors. The discovery mechanisms of an OSPF
(or IS-IS) like protocol can no longer be used to determine connectivity, so the need arises for a
different protocol which operates more at the physical layer to ensure the dataplane is operational.
This has been defined in the Link Management Protocol (LMP) and it has been generalized to
provide typical layer I functionality such as fault detection and isolation.

Optical transport represents a number of different technologies, ranging from SONET/SDH,

including the Time Division Multiplexed (TDM) structure embedded within it’s framing, to fibers,
which carry multiple wavelengths through the use DWDM technology. These technologies can be
layered in a hierarchical fashion and connections at one layer can be used as a path to establish
connections at a higher layer. This in itself is a radical departure from the assumptions of classical
IP routing, which assumes a flat underlying layer II transport. This hierarchical structure has
implications for both signaling and routing (figure 3).

Packet Switch
L2 L1 L2 L1 L2 L1 Level 2 Capable (PSC)
L1 L1 L1 Level 1
Classical MPLS

Lambda
Fiber Generalized MPLS
Waveband
(lambda group)
(GMPLS)

Sonet/SDH
Frame

Figure 3 - Packet and Optical MPLS Structure

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With DWDM technology, many parallel paths will be created at the lambda and the SONET/SDH
layers of the hierarchy. Traditional IP routing principles dictate that the discovery process operates
across each link, and that topology information is exchanged across all these links. This can
generate substantial amounts of redundant information and can impact the scalability of the routing
protocol. To alleviate this problem, GMPLS introduces the concept of bundling, whereby the
physical links are combined into a logical link, which is advertised as a single link into the routing
protocol.

There are additional constraints, which must be applied to the optical routing process, particularly
when pure photonic devices are used. These devices are generally incapable of changing
wavelengths from an input port to an output port. Once a particular wavelength has been used on
an interface, the routing and signaling mechanisms must be able to identify that this wavelength is
blocked from use by another interface. These types of changes must be incorporated into the
Djikstra type calculations to determine the shortest constrained path.

Perhaps the most obvious difference between classical IP and optical networks, is that optical
technologies have no concept of IP addresses. The use of IP is an abstraction onto the optical
control plane and the assignment of IP addresses to each interface is an internal management issue.
It may not be possible, or desirable, to assign an IP address to each interface and capabilities exist
to handle both routing and signaling for these “unnumbered” links.

The link bundling, hierarchy and identification of connected neighbors are primarily routing issues.
Unlike classical IP, there is no concept of “hop be hop” forwarding in the optical plane. Paths must
be defined through a network prior to sending traffic. This is the equivalent of creating an LSP
with classical MPLS. Optical LSPs are by their very nature traffic engineered. At a minimum an
optical connection is associated with bandwidth, and may have other optical specific traffic
engineering constraints. These TE extensions are reflected in draft specifications, which extend the
capabilities of the classical IP TE extensions.

GMPLS also specifies changes to the CR-LDP and TE-RSVP signaling protocols for the optical
control plane. In addition to creating explicit paths that reflect optical specific traffic engineering
constraints, the definition of a label is also different. For the generalized model a full 32 bit label is
specified, which can satisfy lambda type requirements as well as map SONET/SDH framing
structures to identify specific bandwidth allocations. (32 bits are used for a generic classical IP
label, but only 20 bits actually represent the label, the remainder carry additional information such
as Time To Live (TTL) etc). Classical MPLS LSPs are also uni-directional and protocol changes
need to reflect both the typical bi-directionality of optical LSPs and the fact that some optical
technologies, such as MEMs have a settling time. The GMPLS specifications allow labels to be
suggested in the downstream (ingress to egress) direction so that hardware can be pre-programmed
to reduce latency. The potential drawback is that the setup may fail if the suggested label does not
intersect with an available label at the downstream node. This can be made much more difficult in
a pure photonic environment where the same wavelength must be used on an end to end basis.

Implicit in classical MPLS is the concept that the start and end points of an LSP are the same type
of device, in this case a Label Edge Router (LER). This concept is carried forward into the
GMPLS world where LSPs can exist at each level of the hierarchy. The logical rule is that optical
LSPs must start and terminate on like devices, or at the same level of the hierarchy; an Ethernet

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LSP must terminate start and terminate on Ethernet capable devices, a lambda based LSP must
start and terminate on a wavelength capable device.

As connections are established at lower levels of the hierarchy, they form LSPs, which can now be
used at higher levels. For example, once and LSP has been created over a fiber, lambda level LSPs
can now be established. Once the lambda level LSPs are established, Ethernet based or
SONET/SDH LSPs can be overlaid on these. A lambda based LSP can span multiple physical
devices, which changes the definition of adjacency as it is traditionally understood. Edge devices
for these LSPs at higher levels of the hierarchy need to learn that they can create their own LSPs
using these newly created lower level LSPs. This is done by injecting these Forwarding Adjacency
– LSPs (FA-LSPs) into the routing protocols so that it can be propagated through the network
using standards routing procedures.

Flowing over these physical layer LSPs are the traditional IP or Packet Switch Capable (PSC)
LSPs. Just as with the optical hierarchy, this interaction between the packet world and optical
world, where both are using the same underlying protocol mechanisms has the potential to offer
optimizations in the future. Additionally, there is no reason traditional TDM connections could be
routed using GMPLS principles. There are many challenges in this area, including the structural
division within carriers where transport mechanisms are separated from services.

The set of mechanisms specified in the GMPLS standards require a sophisticated control plane to
participate in the routing and signaling. Devices which sit at the edge of the network, may only
want to use the resources without participating in the full routing mechanism. The O-UNI
specification is designed for this purpose and is being developed in parallel with the GMPLS
mechanisms specified by the IETF.

Summary

The GMPLS and O-UNI concepts represent the drive towards an integrated optical control plane.
They offer a level of sophistication beyond anything that has previously been developed for a
control plane in the telecommunications area. There still much work to be done, refining the
concepts of the current draft specifications, developing the protocol specifications to deliver the
required functionality and to ensure that the myriad number of possible interactions have standard
handling procedures. As yet, no thought has been given by the standards bodies to supporting an
equivalent of BGP4 for inter-network optical routing. The GMPLS development process will take
time, but the future promise is a network infrastructure which can form the basis for rapid service
provisioning which can form the underlying mechanism for new service offerings, fully integrated
with existing IP technologies.

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