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Definition
The explosive demand for bandwidth for data
networking applications continues to drive photonics technology toward ever increasing
capacity in the backbone fiber network and toward flexible optical networking.
Already commercial Tb/s (per fiber) transmission systems have been announced,
and it can be expected that in the next several years, we will begin to be limited
by the 50 THz transmission bandwidth of silca optical fiber. Efficient bandwidth
utilization will be one of the challenges of photonics research. Since the communication
will be dominated by data, we can expect the network of the future to consist
of multiterabit packet switches to aggregate traffic at the edge of the network
and cross connects with wavelength granularity and tens of terabits throughout
the core. The infrastructure
required to govern Internet traffic volume, which doubles every six months, consists
of two complementary elements: fast point-to-point links and high-capacity switches
and routers. Dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technology, which permits
transmission of several wave-lengths over the same optical media, will enable
optical point-to-point links to achieve an estimated 10 terabits per second by
2008. However, the rapid growth of Internet traffic coupled with the avail-ability
of fast optical links threatens to cause a bottleneck at the switches and routers.
Multiterabit packet-switched
networks will require high-performance scheduling algorithms and architectures.
With port densities and data rates growing at an unprecedented rate, future prioritized
scheduling schemes will be necessary to pragmatically scale toward multiterabit
capacities. Further, support of strict QoS requirements for the diverse traffic
loads characterizing emerging multimedia Internet traffic will increase. Continuous
improvements in VLSI and optical technologies will stimulate innovative solutions
to the intricate packet-scheduling task. Multiterabit
packet switched networks will require high performance scheduling algorithms and
architectures. With port densities and data rates growing at an unprecedented
rate, future prioritized scheduling schemes will be necessary to pragmatically
scale toward multiterabit capacities. Advanced scheduling schemes exploit concurrency
and distributed computation to offer a faster, more efficient decision process.
Further, support of strict QoS requirements for the diverse traffic loads characterizing
emerging multimedia Internet traffic will increase. Continuous improvements in
VLSI and optical technologies will stimulate innovative solutions to the intricate
packet-scheduling task. Routing
Principles The principal criterion of successful
routing is, of course, correctness, but it is not the only criterion. You might
prefer to take the most direct route (the one that takes the least time and uses
the least fuel), the most reliable route (the one that is not likely to be closed
by a heavy snowfall), the most scenic route (the one that follows pleasant country
roads rather than busy highways), the least expensive route (the one that follows
freeways rather than toll roads), or the safest route (the one that avoids the
army's missile testing range). In its most general form, optimal routing
involves forwarding a packet from source to destination using the "best"
path.
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