In this talk, we describe architectures for high speed, Service Independent Access Points (SIAPs) to high capacity (10 Gbps) Optical Wide Area Networks (O-WANs). The proposed SIAP architecture is an advancement over the original GigaPop concept put forth in 1996. The GigaPop was to emulate transparent networking services over existing SONET based networks. During the intervening eighteen months the necessity to utilize the SONET infrastructure has been eliminated. Today we propose operating service independent access directly to Wave Division Multiplex (WDM) O-WANs.

Optical networking systems technologies are constrained by the attributes of the physical layer and components currently available. Among these constraints are: (1) the relative difficulty of supporting large address spaces in all-optical systems due to the cost and complexity of components, (2) the relatively slow frame switching and wavelength reorientation rates that can be obtained as compared to the gross throughput, and (3) the lack of sophisticated optical logic devices. These constraints imply that optical TDM systems must use large frames (compared to current technologies) and short labels or addresses on those frames. Our networking architecture is based upon these constraints.

The primary elements of a SIAP node are:

• Protocol Engine - Used to convert between existing networking services and the O-WAN transmission protocol. This introduces direct support for multiple higher layer protocols at the bit transport layer. Bit sequences within the optical framing structure identify the particular service protocol engine (switch, router, etc.) to use. This simplifies implementation and supports high speeds. Direct demultiplexing to upper layer protocol engines avoids unnecessary processing and queuing delays.
• Optical Processor - Used to encode transmission frames, and select and decode received frames utilizing high capacity (10 Gbps) optical processing. This provides the mechanism by which a flow is encapsulated and its associated framing fields are processed. It supports datapath, control, and management functions such as framing, address/protocol identification, scrambling and descrambling, and error control.
• Link Quality Estimator - Used to estimate signal quality on each of many wavelengths (8-16 wavelengths) for OA&M functions.
• WDM Add/Drop Multiplexers - Used to select a single wavelength for further processing from a received WDM signal or inject a new wavelength into a transmitted signal.
• Protocol-specific engines - Equipment that transmits and receives SONET, ATM, IP or other networking service protocols.

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