An experimental GMPLS-controlled network test-bed enabling sub-wavelength connection provisioning

The efficient accommodation of sub-wavelength client flows on optical channels is a current challenge for resources use optimization in GMPLS controlled optical networks. While optical channels capacity usually exceeds 10 Gbit/s, client connections requests show finer granularity. This paper concentrates on the design and implementation of a GMPLS-controlled grooming capable transport infrastructure on the ASON/GMPLS CARISMA test-bed. Through the paper, the operation of a GMPLS-controlled multi-layer network architecture is introduced, subsequently highlighting implementation issues that come into light. The contributions proposed in the paper are supported by illustrative experimental results.