DICONET: Future generation transparent networking with dynamic impairment awareness?

Transparent networks are widely seen as the prime candidates for the core network technology of the future. These networks provide ultra high speed end-to-end connectivity with high quality of service and failure resiliency. A downside of transparency is the accumulation of physical impairments over long distances, which are difficult to mitigate using physical-layer techniques only, and the novel challenges in fault detection/localization. We present here the DICONET project, a set of techniques and algorithms implemented at multiple layers, culminating with the physical implementation of a transparent optical network on a testbed. DICONET consists of a set of impairment-aware network management algorithms, such as routing and wavelength assignment, monitoring, failure localization, rerouting, all integrated within a unified control plane, which extends known solutions to include the impairmentawareness of the underlying layers.