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Generalized Multi Protocol Label Switching Background: In February 2002 a multi-Research Institute cooperative research project called ONFIG (Optical Networking Focus Interest Group) was initiated in Singapore. The goal of ONFIG was to create impact in the Access Optical Network, through innovative research and development in component and systems technologies. In the systems area, a state of the art optical testbed, consisting of optical cross connects and optical add/drop multiplexers was started. The Generalized Multi Protocol Label Switching project was started in order to put a control plane on top of the ONFIG Testbed. As an industry standard control plane the GMPLS project deliverables provide a suite of protocols covered by the IETF GMPLS draft definitions. Such a protocol stack is crucial to make the testbed conform to industry standards, as well as easy to use from a high level application viewpoint – through channel allocation procedures. Apart from this a major objective of the GMPLS project was to conduct state of the art research in the areas of storage application over WAN, protection and restoration of optical networks and combined traffic engineering of the electro-optical network. The figure below illustrates the operation of the core GMPLS protocol to carry out light-path setup and tear down. Besides the Label Distribution Protocol (CR-LDP), the software also includes modules that carry out the Link Management Protocol (LMP), Open Shortest Path First routing with Traffic Engineering modifications (OSPF-TE). The major benefit of this technology is that it serves as a software glue that allows various systems and subsystems developed by various ONFIG project partners and also multi-vendor hardware and software, to co-exist, cooperate and function together smoothly. It also serves as a base platform for further innovations, four of which have already been proposed. Two have been filed for patent in the US. The remaining two ideas are currently being scrutinized for innovativeness and market potential. A promising application of this technology is in the area of Storage Area Networks. We have demonstrated within GMPLS, how another Singaporean RI’s technology called Hyper-SCSI may be extended to work across wide area networks, using optical light-paths as the communication channel. In future work we intend to continue to explore these areas. Figure 2. For
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