To meet the demand for huge bandwidth created by the multimedia communications revolution, there is an urgent need to dramatically upgrade the existing telecommunications infrastructure. In today's infrastructure, fiber-optics is used in point-to-point transmission links, with all networking and services functions done electronically. To upgrade such an infrastructure in a cost-effective way, Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology may be used to transmit multiple optical channels per fiber. This way, network capacity may grow in response to increased demand. In addition, with the reconfigurability of WDM networks, network configuration may adapt in response to changing traffic patterns. To ensure successful deployment and operations of WDM networks, it becomes essential to have a comprehensive network control and management system which is versatile, robust, and scaleable. In this paper, we describe a network control and management system prototype developed under the Multiwavelength Optical Networking (MONET) project funded by the US government's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. The prototype system provides configuration, connection, fault, and performance management functionalities for reconfigurable WDM all-optical networks. The design of the prototype system follows the TMN logical layered architecture, and it is implemented on a fault-tolerant, CORBA-compliant distributed object computing platform which facilitates robust and scaleable operations.

The multiwavelength optical networking (MONET) consortium has demonstrated national-scale optical networking in a multilocation testbed in New Jersey. The demonstration involves transparent optical connections over path lengths as long as 2290 km, through several network elements (NEs) controlled by two interoperating network control and management (NC&M) systems. This paper describes in detail the three constituent testbeds and the experiments.

This paper describes the connection management research done by the Network Control and Management (NC&M) task force under the multiwavelength optical networking (MONET) program. MONET is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) the US Government Department of Defense, with participation from Bellcore, AT&T, Lucent Technologies, several government agencies, and regional Bell operating companies. MONET's vision is to develop a flexible reliable high-capacity high-performance cost-effective national optical network based on multiwavelength fiber optic technology. As an important component in realizing this vision, the MONET program includes the architecture and design of a prototype network control and management system for MONET's reconfigurable wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) all-optical network. The primary objectives of the prototype research work are to develop the architecture and framework for managing national-scale transparent reconfigurable WDM optical networks and to demonstrate the feasibility of the NC&M prototype system in a field experiment network in Washington, DC. This prototype system allows the program participants to conduct experiments and gain experience in the management and operations of reconfigurable optical networks. This paper describes the connection management aspects of the prototype system, addressing issues such as the management architecture, information model, and provisioning algorithms of the prototype management system.