| 摘要 |
A high-speed wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) network that provides compliant, "invisible" paths of adaptive capacity from an external information source to an external information sink is described. The WDM network includes a plurality of high-speed electronic edge switch modules that are connected by WDM optical links to parallel-plane switch core modules. Smearing distributors ensure that packets to be transferred to a given output link are distributed evenly among the planes of the core modules. Consequently, contention is resolved. Each edge switch is connected to each core module by a WDM optical link. For purposes of admission control, the capacity of the link, rather than the capacity of channels in the link, is considered. This provides much improved granularity in connection bandwidth. The smallest connection may be a few kb/s, while the largest connection may be link capacity. Each edge switch is also adapted to accept data from external sources in a plurality of formats. Data is transferred through the network as fixed-length data segments and the network is content unaware beyond the edges. The advantages include a highly scalable, high-speed compliant network that is invisible to a user because connection is simple, source/sink protocols are generally not an issue, and delay jitter is minimal.
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