An experimental switching-aware GMPLS-based lightpath provisioning protocol in wavelength-routed networks

In wavelength-routed optical networks, the high-delay introduced by the optical switching fabric for resource reservation increases critically the lightpath setup delay. In order to minimize the setup delay, Generalized Multi-protocol Label Switching (GMPLS) introduced the concept of Suggested Label Object (SL), which allows to start reserving and configuring the hardware with a proposed wavelength from the source node to the destination node. This solution is not optimal in wavelength selective networks (WSN) (i.e., without wavelengths converters). The need of guaranteeing the wavelength continuity constraint for end-to-end optical connections, combined with the lack of global wavelength-based link information (the source node is not aware of which wavelengths are available on each link), makes that the likelihood of establishing a lightpath using the proposed suggested label may be minimum. In this article, we propose an enhancement to the current GMPLS RSVP-TE signaling protocol with offset time-based provisioning that minimizes the lightpath setup, improving the overall network performance in terms of blocking probability and setup delay. Experimental performance evaluation has been carried out in ADRENALINE testbed, a GMPLS-based intelligent all-optical transport network.