Traffic grooming on WDM rings using optical burst transport

A sublambda traffic-grooming scheme on wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) rings, which is called optical burst transport (OBT), is proposed. The network protocol and architecture allow increased flexibility to tailor the transport network behavior for efficient delivery of bursty data traffic. Using different network parameters, its performance is analyzed via simulation, and the implementation issues including the media-access-control (MAC) protocol, tunable-filter controller, and burst-mode receiver are addressed. Finally, the feasibility of the OBT with an experimental testbed built by the authors is demonstrated and a streaming-video application is used to present its overall functionality.