Ring/mesh optical network

摘要

A plurality of optical cross-connect switches are freely interconnected to form a mesh type network. At least three of the optical cross-connect switches are switched to form a line-switched ring network, thereby forming a ring/mesh network. Simply by changing the switching logic of the optical cross-connect switches within the ring/mesh network, new rings can be created and existing rings can be modified, thereby providing a great deal of flexibility to make changes to the network as traffic patterns change without incurring hardware costs or significant network downtime. Another advantage of the ring/mesh design approach is that spare capacity within the line-switched ring can be utilized by the mesh network, and spare capacity within the mesh network can be utilized by the line-switched ring, thereby significantly increasing the spare efficiency.