Policy-based fault management for integrating IP over optical networks

In this paper we present a policy-based architecture for aggregating (grooming) IP/MPLS flows (packet-based LSPs) within lightpaths taking into account the possibility of having to cope with further transport faults. The defined policies try to minimize the negative impact when a failure is detected in the optical transport network. Such policies deal with 1+1, 1:1 and 1:N schemes of protection. In our model, IP/MPLS flows are divided into High Priority (HP) and Low Priority (LP) traffics. The architecture is composed of an Admission Control responsible for receiving the requisitions from the IP/MPLS network and forward them to the Policy Manager which in turn is responsible for applying the policies. The architecture also has a Fault Manager responsible for accounting the failures and a Resource Manager responsible for managing the lightpaths. Our approach has been implemented to validate the policies and the results showed that the defined policies decrease the number of affected LSPs when a given lightpath fails.