All-optical packet switching for metropolitan area networks: opportunities and challenges

The fast evolution of networks has been continuously driven by new advances in enabling technologies, as well as the growth of Internet traffic. All-optical packet switching provides high throughput, rich routing functionalities, and excellent flexibility. These characteristics make it an excellent candidate for next-generation metropolitan area networks, which will be much more dynamic and demanding than today´s networks. In this article we not only discuss some of the architectural challenges involved in the design of all-optical packet switched networks, but also present the reader a high-level picture of how such future networks could be integrated with other network segments, to provide users end-to-end connectivity with performance and simplicity