Cloud service providers use replication across geographically distributed data centers to improve end-to-end performance as well as to offer high reliability under failures. Content replication often involves the transfer of huge data sets over the wide area network and demands high backbone transport capacity. In this paper, we discuss how a Globally Reconfigurable Intelligent Photonic Network (GRIPhoN) between data centers could improve operational flexibility for cloud service providers. The proposed GRIPhoN architecture is an extension of earlier work [34] and can provide a bandwidth-on-demand service ranging from low data rates (e.g., 1 Gbps) to high data rates (e.g., 10-40 Gbps). The inter-data center communication network which is currently statically provisioned could be dynamically configured based on demand. Today's backbone optical networks can take several weeks to provision a customer's private line connection. GRIPhoN would enable cloud operators to dynamically set up and tear down their connections (sub-wavelength or wavelength rates) within a few minutes. GRIPhoN also offers cost-effective restoration capabilities at wavelength rates and automated bridge-and-roll of private line connections to minimize the impact of planned maintenance activities.

A previously designed architecture that endows a wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) optical network with network management capabilities is studied from an information theoretic perspective. The central component of this system is a degraded Σ-interference channel, which combines a multiple access channel and two degraded broadcast channels. Inner and outer bounds for the capacity region are derived for a general discrete memoryless model and a Gaussian model and are shown to provide a complete solution for the symmetric problem. Comparisons are drawn between the coding technique suggested by our information theoretic analysis and the coding method used in a working implementation.

In optically routed networks, information for verifying network configuration is not readily available in electronic form. To address this problem, a low-cost all-digital system was developed in [1], [2] for overlaying a low-rate management data channel on a high-rate payload data channel. In this work, we analyze the performance of this novel multi-user communication system under chip-level asynchronism, extending a previous analysis under chip-level synchronism. Two decoding strategies are investigated: a zero-forcing and a minimum mean-squared error detector. Fundamental tradeoffs among several system parameters are identified.

Recently, an all-digital overlay system has been developed in for providing useful management functionalities in optically routed networks. The main feature of the system is to overlay a low-rate stream of management data on a high-rate payload data channel so that the low-rate stream can be recovered by low-cost decoders located at various points within the network. The two key components of the overlay architecture are (i) a constant weight code used for multiplexing payload data streams, and (ii) a CDMA-based protocol used for managing interference among auxiliary data streams. In this work, we provide a general analysis under chip-asynchronous conditions, thereby extending a previous study under chip-synchronous conditions. Our analysis reveals that the bit error rate of the management data channel is limited by the presence of the payload interference. We show that significant performance improvements can be achieved by exploiting the covariance structure of the payload interference and investigate several low-complexity linear detection strategies. Analytical and numerical performance results are provided, and fundamental tradeoffs among several system parameters are identified.

Existing solutions for optically routed networks (ORNs) lack certain key management functions available to electronically routed networks. In particular, ORNs have extremely limited capabilities to trace the path of an optical signal through the network. In this paper, we present a method for embedding path identification and other management information into the transport stream in such a way that the management information can be read by a low-bandwidth, low-cost receiver, without having to terminate or decode the full-rate payload stream. We outline a method for embedding such management information, using a digital coding process at the transmitter, and two distinct digital decoding processes for receiving the management and payload data streams, respectively. Feasibility of the method is demonstrated by computing the bit-error performance of example codes under realistic operating conditions, including multiple management streams in multiwavelength systems.