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Clos Architecture in OPS

Seminar Report 04

INTRODUCTION
The need to transmit information in large volumes and in more compact forms is felt these days more than ever before. To provide the bandwidth necessary to fulfill the ever-increasing demand, the copper networks have been upgraded and nowadays to a great extend replaced with optical fiber networks. Though initially these were deployed as pointto-point interconnections, real optical networking using optical switches is possible today. Since the advent of optical amplifiers allowed the deployment of dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM), the bandwidth available on a single fiber has grown significantly. Optical communication can take place in one of the two ways either circuit switching or else packet switching. In circuit switching, the route and bandwidth allocated to the stream remain constant over the lifetime of the stream. The capacity of each channel is divided into a number of fixed-rate logical channels, called circuits. Optical cross connects (OXCs) switch wavelengths from their input ports to their output ports. To the client layer of the optical network, the connections realized by the network of OXCs are seen as a virtual topology, possibly different from physical topology (containing WDM links). To set up the connections, as in the old telephony world, a so called control plane is necessary to allow for signaling. Enabling automatic setup of connections through such a control plane is the focus of the work in the automatically switched optical network (ASON) framework. Since the light paths that have to be set up in such an ASON will have a relatively long lifetime (typically in the range of hours to days), the switching time requirements on OXCs are not very
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demanding. It is clear that the main disadvantage of such circuit switched networks is that they are not able to adequately cope with highly variable traffic. Since the capacity offered by a single wavelength ranges up to a few tens of gigabits per second, poor utilization of the available bandwidth is likely. A packet switched concept, where bandwidth is effectively consumed when data is being sent, clearly allows more efficient handling of traffic that greatly varies in both volume and communication endpoints, such as in currently dominant internet traffic. In packet switching, the data stream originating at the source is divided into packets of fixed or variable size. In this method the bandwidth is effectively consumed when data is being sent and so allows a more efficient handling of traffic that greatly varies in both volume and communication endpoints. In the last decade, various research groups have focused on optical packet switching (OPS), aimed at more efficiently using the huge bandwidths offered by such networks. The idea is to use optical fiber to transport optical packets, rather than continuous streams of light. Optical packets consist of a header and a payload. In an OPS node, the transported data is kept in the optical domain, but the header information is extracted and processed using mature control electronics, as optical processing is still in its infancy. To limit the amount of header processing, client layer traffic (e.g., IP traffic) will be aggregated into fairly large packets. To unlock the possibilities of OPS, several issues arise and are being
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solved today. To be competitive with the other solutions, the OPS cost node needs to be limited, and the architectures should be future proof (i.e., scalable). In this context, the work of Clos on multistage architectures has been inspiring. In the era in which Clos produced his work, the dominant telecommunications technology was analog telephony using copper wire as the transport medium. Closs paper helped the development of large switches: the multistage architectures proved to need far fewer cross points. This reduction in cross points was a very important issue, since it greatly determined the cost. Indeed, since Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain had only developed the transistor only a few years earlier, large scale integration as we know it today, was still a quite ambitious research topic. The main achievement of Clos was to circumvent technological boundaries, while also reducing the cost. Though communications technology has advanced much since the days of Clos, the concepts he developed are still in use. In the context of OPS, the driving factors that lead to the adoption of multistage architectures were again reducing switch complexity (thus cost) and circumventing technological constraints. These issues are being discussed here from an architectural design point, rather than elaborating on, say, packet scheduling and routing problems in multistage switches.

Clos Architecture in OPS

Seminar Report 04

MULTISTAGE APPROACHES TO OPS


Node architectures for OPS:
One of the best known, or at least quite impressive, optical switching technologies is MEMS using tiny mirrors to deflect light from a particular input to a particular output port. Both 2D variants (where mirrors are either tilted up or lie down and let light pass) and 3D variants (with mirrors tilting along two axes) have been demonstrated. While the characteristics in terms of optical signal quality distortion are quite good, this approach is not feasible in an OPS concept where very fast switching times (range of nanoseconds) is mandatory. Two widespread approaches are one based on arrayed wave-guide grating (AWG) with tunable wavelength converters (TWCs), and another based on a broadcast-and-select (B & S) concept using, for example, SOA technology. Fig.1 An AWG based switch

The AWG component has the interesting feature that where light inserted via one of its input ports, the output port it will come out of depends on the wavelength used. In fig.1, a signal entering on input port 4 will end up at either output port 4 or 5, depending on whether it is on the red wavelength or the blue wavelength, respectively. Thus by providing
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wavelength converters at the AWGs inputs, we can exploit the structure as a space switch. The wavelength to be used to reach a particular output from a given input can be found by a table lookup operation. Fig.2 A Broadcast and Select switch

Mux and Amplify

Splitters and Shuffle Space and Wavelength selection 1

1 16 16 16 1 16 16 16 16

The switch fabrics architecture in a B & S approach is sketched in the fig.2. It comprises several sub blocks. In the first block a couple of input ports that use different wavelengths are multiplexed into a single optical fiber. Each of these fiber signals is broadcast through a splitting stage to each of the output ports. Using two successive SOA stages, a single wavelength signal is kept per output port. The first SOA array is used to select only one of the input fiber signals for each of the output port. The second selection stage uses an SOA array and a wavelength selective component to keep only a single wavelength per output port. SOA stands for service oriented architecture, which is a relatively new concept. The main advantage of the B & S architecture clearly is its inherent
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multicast capability, which the AWG approach lacks. However the asset of the AWG architecture is that it relies on a passive component and does not suffer from splitting losses as the B & S does.

Clos Architecture in OPS

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CLOS applied to OPS


In both the B & S and AWG approaches, scalability issues will arise. A solution is to employ multistage architectures similar to the one proposed by Clos. The terminology being used in relation to blocking and switching can be defined as follows: Strictly nonblocking: We call a switching architecture strictly nonblocking when it is always possible to connect any idle input port to any idle output port, irrespective of other connections that are already present. Rearrangable nonblocking: A switch is rearrangable nonblocking if it is possible to connect any idle input port to any idle output port, bout some of the existing connections have to be reconfigured in order to do so. After the reconfiguration all connections are functional again. Internally blocking: When a switch cannot guarantee to be able to always connect an idle input to an idle output port, it is said to be internally nonblocking. Synchronous mode: It is a mode of operation of packet switched networks in which packets can start only at certain discrete moments in time; each time slot, packets on different channels are aligned. Asynchronous mode: In this particular mode, packets can arrive at
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any moment in time, without any alignment.

Fig.3 Three Stage Clos switch

N input ports output ports

Switches

Switches (N/n N/n)

Switches (nk)

(n k)

The scheme of a three stage Clos switch is outlined in fig.3 for an N N switch. The N input ports are grouped per n, and both the first and third stage has a switching fabric for each such group of n ports. The second stage contains k switches, which each in turn are connected to each of the N/n first and third stage switches. Thus the first stage comprises n k switches, the second N/n N/n, and the last one k n. Now, a crucial question is how many second stage switches have to be foreseen. The answer to this question depends on the degree of blocking we want to realize. In circuit switching, it is clear that the lifetimes of circuits may
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overlap, but the start and end times will most likely not coincide: thus once we have chosen to route a connection from input A to output B along a certain second stage switch, we have to stick to this choice for the entire duration of the connection. Thus the switch needs to be strictly nonblocking. However, with synchronous OPS, we have a packet switching concept where a switch adopts a slotted mode of operation; that is, each time slot the packets at the inputs are inspected and switched jointly to the appropriate output. The next time slot, all these packets are finished, and the switch may be completely reconfigured. It is clear that in this case of synchronous OPS, it is sufficient to have a rearrangeable nonblocking switch: for each slot in turn we can choose the second stage switch. As per Closs work, to achieve strict nonblocking, the number of second stage switches need to be k 2n 1. However, for a rearrangeable nonblocking switch, k n suffices. Thus, we need only about half as many second stage switches for synchronous OPS than for asynchronous OPS. The proof of the theorems stated above is as follows: Consider the condition to be satisfied for achieving strict nonblocking. First we suppose the inequality is satisfied, and we show that the Clos network is strictly nonblocking (SNB). To show that, assume that a new connection must be set up from input node A to output node B. We must prove that this new connection can be made without having to rearrange existing conditions. When a new connection from A to B is requested, there can be at most n 1 input links busy at switch A and at most n 1 output links busy at switch B (not including the new connection). Thus, A is connected to at most n 1 middle switches and B to at most n 1 middle switches, for a total of at most 2n 2 switches. Since there are k 2n 1 middle switches, there
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must be one middle switch that is connected to neither to A nor to B. Therefore the new connection can be made by connecting that middle switch to A and to B.

To prove the converse, assume that the switch is SNB. We will show that the inequality must be satisfied. Consider the worst case situation when switch A is connected to n -1 output switches excluding B and when B is connected to n 1 input switches excluding A. In that situation, A is connected to n -1 middle switches and B is connected to n 1 other middle switches. The switches A and B are connected to different middle switches since A and B are not connected together. Thus 2n 2 middle switches are connected to either A or B. Assume that a new connection must then be set up between the free input link of A and the free output link of B. This new connection is possible only if there is a middle switch that is not yet connected to either A or B, which requires that k 2n 1, as had to be shown. The above theorem can be used to construct an N N strictly nonblocking switch with N = p q. The construction has an input that has q parallel planes. Each of these planes is a p (2p 1) SNB input switch. The input planes are attached to 2p 1 parallel q q SNB intermediate switches. These q q planes are in turn attached to q parallel (2p -1) p SNB output switches. We can view each input plane as being a first stage switch in a Clos network, each middle plane as a middle stage switch, and each output plane as an output switch. Indeed the first two stages are fully connected and so
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are the last two stages, so that the configuration is a Clos network. Thus the modular switch just described is a (p, q, 2p 1, q, p) Clos network, in the notation introduced earlier and by the theorem, this switch is strictly nonblocking

The condition for rearrangable nonblocking switch can be understood by considering the rearrangements that need to be made to set up a connection between A and B through a set of middle switches. Now, in OPS, part of the solution to contention resolution is to employ wavelength conversion: when two or more packets need to be switched to the same outgoing fiber, one or more of them may be converted to another wavelength to allow their simultaneous transmission on the output fiber. So in packet switching, we are not interested in on which exact wavelength channel the packet is put; we only want the correct output fiber. This allows simplification of design: if we choose to have all outputs of a third stage switch going to the same output fiber (thus, for example, n = W, where W is the number of wavelengths per fiber), we can replace the third stage switch with fixed output wavelength converters (FWCs). A FWC converts any incoming wavelength into a predefined (thus fixed) wavelength. Thus, we obtain a three-stage architecture with only two stages comprising smaller (full) switch fabrics and one with only FWCs, as shown in fig.4.

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Fig.4 Two Stage switch with FWCs

F switches

W switches

F W switches

Input ports = Output ports = N = W F

Reducing the number of SOAs for a B&S switch


The major impairment of the B&S switch architecture outlined before is the splitting stage, which degrades the optical signal. It is clear that this will limit scaling this architecture to very large port counts. By combining smaller sized switches in the Clos like multistage approaches of the figure, obviously with some regeneration stages in between, we can overcome this problem. From a cost perspective, we may assume that the number of SOA gates used gives a good indication. In the following three different architectures in terms of number of SOA gates used: Single stage Three stage Two stage with wavelength converters The architecture of a switch with two switching stages and fixed output wavelength converters was discussed earlier and sketched in fig. 4. The number of SOA gates required to construct a single stage N N switch is given by s (N, w) = N (N/w + w)
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For each of the N output ports, N/w gates are needed for space selection, while w gates are needed for wavelength selection. Since the switching matrix will be surrounded by wavelength converters (actually 3R regenerators), the number of wavelengths w can be optimized (and chosen different from W, the number of wavelengths on the input/output fibers) to minimize the number of SOA gates. The optimal choice is w = N, which leads to a minimal number of SOA gates for a single stage switch. For OPS switches, it has been mentioned that the number of second stage switches needed to provide a nonblocking fabric to operate in slotted mode is k = n. The optimization of n to reduce the number of SOA gates in the overall multistage architecture leads to the choice n = .5 N. In the proposed two-stage architecture the number of SOA gates can also be easily calculated. From this case study it is apparent that not only to solve scalability issues but also for cost reduction purposes, Clos-like approaches can be very helpful for B&S based OPS switches.

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A strictly nonblocking AWG based switch for asynchronous operation


The AWG based approach was outlined earlier. The multiple (W) wavelength channels carried in (D) WDM on incoming fibers are demultiplexed, and each of them is led through a tunable wavelength converter to control the output port of the AWG to which it needs to be switched. The outputs of the AWG are then coupled into optical fibers. Since the set of wavelengths used on in- and output fibers should be the same, the range of the TWCs should not exceed those W wavelengths. However, the design in the earlier figure leads to an internally blocking switch. Still, when the switch is used for slotted OPS, The internal blocking can be overcome and the performance is very close to that of a rearrangeable nonblocking switch. However, for asynchronous switching, the blocking problem cannot be easily alleviated. To construct a strictly nonblocking switch with an AWG for asynchronous operation, we need to increase the range of the input TWcs to F W, that is, as many wavelengths need to be used as there are switch ports. To limit the wavelength range on the output fibers to W, we then need to provide output wavelength converters. Those output converters could be fixed wavelength output converters (FWCs). The resulting configuration is shown in fig.5.

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Fig.5 A strictly nonblocking architecture with AWGs and wavelength converters


F AWGs 2 W AWGS

The nonblocking switchs requirement of TWCs with range F W raises a scalability issue. It is quite intuitive that the technological evolution of the range of wavelengths for tunable transmitters (the core part of a TWC) will closely follow the increase in the number of wavelengths used in the fibers. Thus, for the blocking node where only a range of W is required for the TWCs, no serious scalability problem is foreseen. However, when the range needs to be extended F W, this maybe an issue, certainly when a large number of fibers F is involved. To overcome this scalability limit, a Clos - like multistage design can be helpful. The eventual switch design is depicted in the figure, which is similar to the generic structure presented earlier: a first switching stage
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comprises W 2 W switches, a second consists of F F switches, and the last stage contains only TWCs. As we are designing a strictly nonblocking node, the converters at the output can no longer be fixed output wavelength converters. The range for the TWcs for each of the three stages is 2 W, F, and W. When we assume that the range of the TWCs is limited to W wavelengths, we end up with the condition that F W/2. This is a quite realistic assumption, given the fairly broad range of wavelengths available already today. The multistage design of the figure uses smaller sized AWGs than the single stage approach, which allows overcoming potential technological limitations. In this situation, it is to be noted that the Clos like approach did not lead to a reduction of the number of components or cross points, as in most other Clos based approaches. Over here, we now need 5 F W converters, whereas in the original design needed only 2 F W, of which F W were fixed outputs (which are, by the way, cheaper). However, the demands on those F W converters were quite unrealistic in terms of tunability range. Thus the Clos approachs advantage in this case is that it enables technological limitations to be circumvented. Even though TWCs are, at this point of time, rather complex and thus expensive devices, it is expected that their cost will drop sharply. Indeed, research on these devices continues and the integration of the converters with tunable lasers has already been proposed allowing production at a substantially lower price. Thus, the TWC seems a viable candidate for usage in OPS, it being the technology for the mid - to long term future. An additional quality of wavelength conversion particularly useful in the multistage solutions at hand is its side effect of amplification.
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CONCLUSION
Despite the fact that both information characteristics and communication technology have greatly evolved since the time Closs seminal paper appeared, his ideas on multistage switches still prove to be very useful. In this discussion, the focus has been on their application in optical networking. A range of examples in the field of circuit switching has been outlined, after which the focus has been on Clos-like design in optical packet switching. Two of the most widespread architectures for OPS have been presented: broadcast and select switches using SOAs, and AWG based switches. The former profits from a Clos-like multistage architecture to reduce the number of SOA gates required and to enlarge the switch size to high port counts. The AWG based design was shown to be prone to internal blocking when the tenability of wavelength converters is limited. A multistage design inspired by Clos networks offers a viable solution for the blocking problem. As in the good old days, multistage approaches are still very useful to reduce costs (that is the number of components used) as well as to circumvent technological limitations.

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REFERENCES
IEEE Communication Magazine, February 2004 Jean Walrand, Pravin Varaiya, High Performance Communication Networks, Morgan Kaufman Publications

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ABSTRACT
While the technological evolution since Closs seminal article on multistage switch architectures has been huge, his work and ideas still live on. In this seminar, I discuss node architectures for optical packet switching and show how the multistage approach proposed by Clos can be adopted to solve scalability issues and construct switches with large port counts. As in the old days the driving factors behind the introduction of multistage concepts also include economical issues: compared to single stage architecture, the number of components to realize the switching fabric will be reduced.

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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION MULTISTAGE APPROACHES TO OPS 1.NODE ARCHITECTURES FOR OPS 2.CLOS APPLIED TO OPS 3.REDUCING NUMBER OF SOAs FOR B&S SWITCH 4.A STRICTLY NONBLOCKING AWG BASED SWITCH FOR ASYNCHRONOUS OPERATION CONCLUSION REFERENCES

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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