A Novel Switching Architecture for IP Over WDM Networks

Integrating IP and WDM is an attractive direction for research. Many solutions have been presented but it is noted that the existing switching technologies still need more concern. Since optical packet switching is not practical yet, there are just two possible solutions left. One is wavelength routing(WR), which is circuit switching in essence and the other is newly proposed optical burst switching (OBS). In this paper, characteristics of WR and OBS are first described, then, compared in several aspects. It is notice that in many aspects, the wavelength routing and burst switching are complement. This stimulates us to propose a new switching architecture, which may be considered as "mixture" of WR and OBS. We beleve the network built on new switching structure can accommodate the requirements of practicability, flexibility, robustness, effciency and etc. simultaneously. However, many related problems still need to be further researched.