A regenerator system is provided for dynamic and asymmetric bandwidth capacity adjustment when exchanging data between a first remote network device and a second remote network device. The regenerator includes first and second couplers in communication with the first and second remote network devices, respectively, using a first communication medium that provides multiple communication channels, and at least one redirecting device operable to selectively configure at least one of the channels for either transmission of a signal from the first remote network device to the second remote network device, or transmission of the signal from the second remote network device to the first remote network device.

Systems and methods for a multi-drop, unidirectional service in a network include, responsive to a source point, one or more drop points, and a routing consideration, computing a path in the network; causing establishment of the multi-drop, unidirectional service on the computed path, through one of a control plane and a Software Defined Networking (SDN) controller; and managing the multi-drop, unidirectional service through the one of the control plane and the SDN controller. The multi-drop, unidirectional service has the source point at an originating node, one or more drop points at associated intermediate nodes, zero or more intermediate nodes with no drop points, and one or more drop points at associated terminating nodes.

The present invention is directed to a low latency fiber optic local area network with a network and a plurality of nodes connected through optical fibers. Each node has a plurality of bi-directional input/output interfaces. Each bi-directional input/output interface has a demultiplexer, at least one optical power coupler, a plurality of wavelength converters, and a plurality of internal optical waveguides. The internal optical waveguides extend from each wavelength converter and are for communication with the demultiplexer, the input fiber optic interface, and the optical fiber. Each optical power coupler has a fiber optic output interface for communication with other nodes, and each demultiplexer has a input fiber optic interface for communication with other nodes.

A regenerator system is provided for dynamic and asymmetric bandwidth capacity adjustment when exchanging data between a first remote network device and a second remote network device. The regenerator includes first and second couplers in communication with the first and second remote network devices, respectively, using a first communication medium that provides multiple communication channels, and at least one redirecting device operable to selectively configure at least one of the channels for either transmission of a signal from the first remote network device to the second remote network device, or transmission of the signal from the second remote network device to the first remote network device.

A network component comprising at least one processor configured to implement a method comprising collecting wavelength availability information associated with a wavelength switched optical network (WSON), receiving a path computation request to transport a signal through the WSON, calculating at least one route through the WSON for the signal, and assigning at least one wavelength for the signal to use along the route. Also disclosed is a network comprising a first path computation element (PCE) configured to compute at least one route for a signal between a source and a destination, and a second PCE in communication with the first PCE, wherein the second PCE is configured to receive the route from the first PCE and assign at least one wavelength to the route.

A method of setting up an end-to end connection between two end-points in an optical network. A plurality of validated paths in the network are defined. Each validated path extends between a respective pair of wavelength termination points and has requisite physical resources to carry signal traffic between its pair of wavelength termination points. A graph of the network is generated. An edge of the graph corresponds with a respective validated path, and a vertex of the of the graph corresponds with at least one wavelength termination point. The graph is analyzed to compute an end-to-end path between two vertices respectively corresponding with end-points of the end-to-end connection, and the end-to-end connection set up using the computed path.

A network component comprising at least one processor configured to implement a method comprising collecting wavelength availability information associated with a wavelength switched optical network (WSON), receiving a path computation request to transport a signal through the WSON, calculating at least one route through the WSON for the signal, and assigning at least one wavelength for the signal to use along the route. Also disclosed is a network comprising a first path computation element (PCE) configured to compute at least one route for a signal between a source and a destination, and a second PCE in communication with the first PCE, wherein the second PCE is configured to receive the route from the first PCE and assign at least one wavelength to the route.

Multiple switch planes, each having meshed bufferless switch units, connect source nodes to sink nodes to form a communications network. Each directed pair of source and sink nodes has a first-order path traversing a single switch unit in a corresponding switch plane and multiple second-order paths each traversing two switch units in one of the remaining switch planes. To reduce processing effort and minimize requisite switching hardware, connectivity patterns of source nodes and sink nodes to the switch planes are selected so that each pair of source node and sink node connects only once to a common switch unit. Widely-varying flow rates may be allocated from each source node to the sink nodes. To handle frequent changes of flow-rate allocations, in order to follow variations of traffic distribution, a high-throughput scheduling system employing coordinated multiple scheduler units is provided in each switch plane.

Dynamic restoration involves routing and bandwidth assignment of an unplanned restoration path in a wavelength switched optical network (20), having regeneration nodes (60), nodes each having a ROADM (62) having drop paths and add paths. An electrical switch (68) provides configurable regeneration capacity by coupling selected drop paths to selected add paths. Some of the configurable regeneration capacity is kept for unplanned restoration paths. A PCE determines (120) routing and bandwidth assignments for an unplanned restoration path for the traffic flow to avoid a fault, and sends (130) configuration messages to the nodes to set up the unplanned restoration path dynamically and to configure the electrical switch to provide regeneration on the path. Keeping some reconfigurable regeneration capacity enables much longer unplanned paths to be found to avoid faults, and enables wavelength conversion if needed. Thus the reliability of finding at least one path avoiding the fault can be increased.

An optical bridge for switching between a plurality of electrical chips, the optical bridge comprising: a passive optical router; and a plurality of Bridge Interface Chips optically connected to the passive optical router; each Bridge Interface Chip being connectable to one of the plurality of electrical chips to form a connection between that electrical chip and the passive optical router at which electrical signals from the electrical chip are converted into wavelength tunable modulated optical signals for transmission to the passive optical router and at which an optical signals from the passive optical router are converted into electrical signals to be received by the electrical chip; wherein each Bridge Interface Chip includes a wavelength tunable laser input and a modulator for modulating the wavelength tunable laser input to provide the wavelength tunable modulated optical signals.