A device may cause an optical signal to be transmitted via a network path. The device may receive, from a network device, a link layer discover protocol (LLDP) message. The LLDP message may include signal characteristic information regarding the optical signal. The device may adjust transmission of the optical signal based on receiving the LLDP message. The device may cause an adjusted optical signal to be transmitted via the network path based on adjusting transmission of the optical signal.

An optical submarine branching apparatus includes a first, second, and third switching unit. The first switching unit is connected to N first, second, and third optical fiber transmission lines connected to a first, second and third terminal stations, respectively, and switches a transmission route for a wavelength-multiplexed optical signal. The second switching unit is interposed on the N first optical fiber transmission lines between the first terminal station and the first switching unit, and switches a connection relation between in front of and behind a place where the second switching unit is interposed. The third switching unit is interposed on the N second optical fiber transmission lines between the second terminal station and the first switching unit, and switches a connection relation between in front of and behind a place where the third switching unit is interposed.

A method for computing a frequency slot channel, a path computation element and a node are disclosed. The method includes: when a frequency slot channel needs to be established, an ingress node sending to a path computation element a path computation request message which carries spectrum resource information needed for establishing the frequency slot channel; according to the received spectrum resource information sent by the ingress node, the path computation element computing out the frequency slot channel by combining of topology information of a network and spectrum resource information of each node in the network. The path computation element includes a receiving module and a computing module. When working as an ingress node in a process of establishing a frequency slot channel, the node includes a message construction module and a sending module.

A grooming method and apparatus for a packet optical transport network are disclosed. The method includes: according to an arrangement order of various services, planning a path from a service source node to a service target node in an ith service in a topology set graph; when the path includes a wavelength link in a physical link, removing the wavelength link, and establishing a virtual link between a link source node and a link target node of the removed wavelength link; updating capacities of various links in the path; calculating a weight of a newly established virtual link, and adding the newly established virtual link and the corresponding weight to the topology set graph; and planning a path from a service source node to a service target node in an i+1th service in the topology set graph, until all services are finished.

Systems and methods for providing a data service through a packet-optical switch in a network include, subsequent to defining a loop-free forwarding topology for the data service in the network, if the packet-optical switch is a degree 2 site for the data service, providing the data service through the packet-optical switch at a Layer 1 protocol bypassing a partitioned packet fabric of the packet-optical switch; and if the packet-optical switch is a degree 3 or more site for the data service with multi-point connectivity, providing the data service through the packet-optical switch at the Layer 1 protocol and at a packet level using the partitioned packet fabric to provide the data service between the multi-point connectivity and to associated OTN connections for each degree of the degree 3 or more site.

Large photonic switches can establish optical paths between a large number of inputs and outputs. A distributed control architecture may be used in order to quickly establish the optical paths in large photonic switches. The distributed control architecture may provide a hierarchical control by grouping together endpoints, determining switching requirements between the groups and determining switching requirements within the groups.

Systems and methods to incrementally scale robotic software-defined cross-connects from 100 to more than 100,000 ports are disclosed. A system is comprised of individual cross-connect units that individually scale in increments of say, 96 interconnects in tier 1 to, for example, 1,008 interconnects total. A system comprised of multiple cross-connect units arranged and interconnected in a two-tier approach is disclosed, one which achieves fully non-blocking, any-to-any connectivity with the flexibility to grow incrementally. Methods to build out this system over time, in an incremental and non-service interrupting fashion, are described.

The invention relates to a new method for jointly defining a policy for assigning wavelengths to each network connection and for calculating the number of wavelengths in dynamic WDM optical networks without wavelength conversion. To solve this problem, the method comprises including in each network connection a fixed route for transmitting, which is defined before operating the network. This new approach has two main differences from previous strategies.

An apparatus includes a reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) having an input port to receive a first optical signal from a second device. The ROADM also includes a first wavelength selective switch (WSS), in optical communication with the input port, to convert the first optical signal into a second optical signal, a loopback, in optical communication with the first WSS, to transmit the second optical signal, and a second WSS, in optical communication with the loopback, to convert the second optical signal to a third optical signal and direct the third optical signal back to the second device via the input port.

Systems and methods are provided for determining an optical bypass for an inter-regional wide area network (WAN) for regions of server facilities of a cloud service provider. In particular, the optical bypass connects non-adjacent regional server centers of the WAN by eliminating needs of data conversions at intermediate regional server centers. The determining the optical bypass includes receiving a WAN topology data, capacity and demand information about the WAN. The determining includes an objective function to maximize a number of network resources to free up by determining a revised data flow and bandwidth allocations by introducing the optical bypass in the WAN. The disclosed technology transmits the determined data traffic flow and resource allocation information of the optical bypass, causing a network traffic enforcers to reconfigure the WAN.