Conclusions

Abstract

The optical networking area has witnessed rapid growth in recent years. Despite this rapid growth, there are still many questions to be answered. One main concern, is the influence that optical transmission impairments have on the optical network. In this book, we aimed at filling this gap by addressing the impact of transmission impairments on the overall design and management of wavelength-routed optical networks. The book was divided into two parts: Transparent and Translucent networks. In the transparent part, we provided four chapters. In Chapter 2, we focused on multicasting in wavelength-routed networks. We observed that current multicast-capable cross-connect architectures (e.g., Splitter-and-Delivery (SaD)) have two major problems: a) they require the use of a large number of optical power splitters; hence they are difficult and expensive to fabricate, and b) they have a high power budget requiring a large amount of amplification. We introduced the power-efficient design space that focuses on the reduction of both the number of splitters and the amount of amplification. One instance of that design concept is a cross-connect architecture called Multicast-Only Splitter and Delivery (MOSaD). The MOSaD architecture only utilizes W splitters, where W is the number of wavelengths supported. A second cross-connect architecture, Tap-and-Continue (TaC), was introduced. The TaC cross-connect utilizes only tapping devices and thus significantly reducing the amount of power loss.