Novel implementations and test-bed demonstrations of application-aware OBS network architectures

This paper presents a novel solution towards application aware photonic networking. The solution utilises optical burst switching and application aware router technologies. We demonstrate application-aware bandwidth reservation in an end-to-end multi-bit rate (10 Gbps and 40 Gbps), multi-granular OBS test-bed. This is achieved by hardware implementation and deployment of a hybrid switches based on MEMS and SOA-MZI technologies. We also demonstrate seamless, one-step establishment of application and data layer connections by modifying and extending the JIT OBS protocol.