WDM Network Design

(Reference: Ramaswami et. al., Optical Networks-A Practical

Perspective)
The key network elements that enable optical networking are
optical line terminals (OLTs),
optical add/drop multiplexers (OADMs),
and optical crossconnects (OXCs) .

An OLT multiplexes multiple wavelengths into a single fiber and demultiplexes a set of
wavelengths on a single fiber into separate fibers. OLTs are used at the ends of a
point-to-point WDM link.

An OADM takes in signals at multiple wavelengths and selectively drops some of

these wavelengths locally while letting others pass through. It also selectively adds
wavelengths to the composite outbound signal. An OADM has two line ports where
the composite WDM signals are present, and a number of local ports where
individual wavelengths are dropped and added.

An OXC essentially performs a similar function but at much larger sizes. OXCs have a
large number of ports (ranging from a few tens to thousands) and are able to switch
wavelengths from one input port to another.

Both OADMs and OXCs may incorporate wavelength conversion capabilities.

 Optical Line Terminals

The OLT has wavelength multiplexers and de-multiplexers and adaptation devices
called transponders. The transponders convert the incoming signal from the client
to a signal suitable for transmission over the WDM link and an incoming signal from
the WDM link to a suitable signal toward the client. Transponders are not needed if
the client equipment can directly send and receive signals compatible with the
WDM link. The OLT also terminates a separate optical supervisory channel (OSC)
used on the fiber link.
 Optical Add/Drop Multiplexers

A three-node linear network example illustrates the role of optical add/drop

multiplexers. Three wavelengths are needed between nodes A and C, and one
wavelength each between nodes A and B and between nodes B and C. (a) A
solution using point-to-point WDM systems. (b) A solution using an optical
add/drop multiplexer at node B
 OADM architectures

Parallel

All the wavelengths are separated and multiplexed back

 Modular

Multiplexing and demultiplexing are done in two stages.

The first stage of demultiplexing separates the wavelengths into bands, and the
second stage separates the bands into individual channels
 Serial

Wavelengths are dropped and added one at a time

 Band drop

A band of wavelengths are dropped and added together. W denotes the total
number of wavelengths.
Use of OXC in a network. The OXC sits between the client equipment
of the optical layer and the optical layer OLTs
 WDM Network Design example

There are three nodes labelled A, B, and C, connected by WDM fibre links (refer next
slide).

Assume the traffic generated is in the form of IP packets from routers located at
these nodes.

Assume that all router interfaces operate at 10 Gb/s, which is also the transmission
capacity on each wavelength on the WDM links.

Now suppose, based on estimates of the IP packet traffic, 50 Gb/s of capacity is

required between all three pairs of routers: A–B, B–C, and A–C.

The network can be designed to handle this traffic in two ways.

 A three-node network.

No optical add/drop:

Nodes A–B and B–C are interconnected by WDM links.

All wavelengths are dropped and added at node B.
10 wavelengths on each of the links A–B and B–C connecting the routers at
the ends of these links

Traffic flowing on link A–B is 100 Gb/s. 50 Gb/s traffic from A–B
+ 50 Gb/s traffic from A–C that must use link A–B

Similarly, the traffic flowing on link B–C is also 100 Gb/s.

Thus the 10 wavelengths on each of the links A–B and B–C are sufficient to
carry this traffic.

Total 40 router ports: 10 in A 20 in B and 10 in C

At the optical layer, nodes A and C have OLTs, whereas node B has a pair of OLTs
that terminate all the wavelengths passing through node B.
With optical add/drop

The five lightpaths on the route A–C pass through the node B within the
optical layer, without being converted to an electrical signal.

Since, half the wavelengths pass through optically at node B, it reduces the
number of router ports at node B

This design requires only 10 router ports at each of the three nodes, A, B,
and C, for a total of 30 router ports, compared to 40 router ports in the
design without optical add/drop. However, this design requires node B to
have an OADM node.
From the point of view of the IP routers, the topology of the
network when all the wavelengths are terminated at node B is
shown in Figure above . This is the topology seen by the IP layer
packet-routing algorithm, such as open shortest path first
(OSPF). This is a linear topology with 10 parallel links between
nodes A and B, and 10 parallel links between nodes B and C.
In the optical add/drop case, the topology of the network seen
by IP routers is a completely connected mesh with 5 parallel
links between each of the three pairs of nodes, as shown in the
Figure .

(Both topologies are capable of meeting the traffic needs at the

IP layer, which calls for 50 Gb/s of capacity between each pair of
routers.)

The topology seen by the IP routers is the

topology of the lightpaths provided by the
optical layer; hence, we will call it the lightpath
topology. It is often called the logical or virtual
topology.
In our previous example, we have seen that both designs are perfectly valid
and will do the job as far as the user is concerned.

The choice between them will be made based on the cost trade-off between
the optical and higher-layer equipment.

We can view the general problem of designing wavelength-routing

networks as Follows:

The fibre topology and the traffic requirements (traffic matrix) are
specified.
In our example the fibre topology is a linear one with three nodes, and the traffic
requirement is 50 Gb/s between every pair of these nodes.

The task is to design a lightpath topology that interconnects the IP routers and to
realize this topology within the optical layer.

In our example, two lightpath topologies that meet the traffic requirements

We call the first problem the lightpath topology design (LTD) problem.

The problem of realizing the lightpath topology within the optical layer is called
the routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) problem
The RWA problem is simple to solve in our example because
there is only one route in the fibre topology between every
pair of nodes.

In a general topology, the RWA problem can be quite

difficult.

Another problem we face in the design of wavelength-

routing networks is that of grooming the higher-layer traffic.

The term grooming is commonly used to refer to the packing

of low-speed SONET/SDH circuits into higher speed circuits.