On Network Design and Planning 2.0 for Optical-computing-enabled Networks

In accommodating the continued explosive growth in Internet traffic, optical core networks have been evolving accordingly thanks to numerous technological and architectural innovations. From an architectural perspective, the adoption of optical-bypass networking in the last two decades has resulted in substantial cost savings, owning to the elimination of massive optical-electrical optical interfaces. In optical-bypass framework, the basic functions of optical nodes include adding (dropping) and cross-connecting transitional lightpaths. Moreover, in the process of cross-connecting transiting lightpaths through an intermediate node, these lightpaths must be separated from each other in either time, frequency or spatial domain, to avoid unwanted interference which deems to deteriorate the signal qualities. In light of recently enormous advances in photonic signal processing / computing technologies enabling the precisely controlled interference of optical channels for various computing functions, we propose a new architectural paradigm for future optical networks, namely, optical-computing-enabled networks. Our proposal is defined by the added capability of optical nodes permitting the superposition of transitional lightpaths for computing purposes to achieve greater capacity efficiency. Specifically, we present two illustrative examples highlighting the potential benefits of bringing about in-network optical computing functions which are relied on optical aggregation and optical XOR gate. The new optical computing capabilities armed at optical nodes therefore call for a radical change in formulating networking problems and designing accompanying algorithms, which are collectively referred to as optical network design and planning 2.0 so that the capital and operational efficiency could be fully unlocked.