Optical code-based filtering architecture for providing access control in all-optical networks

In this paper, we present an optical filtering architecture which provides access control security service at the optical layer. The optical traffic stream is identified by an optical code-word. A configured security policy specifies for each traffic stream, the action that must be executed. A traffic stream labeled by a code-word will be accepted if it is properly decoded. The filtering process is based on code-word matching. The proposed architecture is composed by two main components. The first component is a tunable encoder, implemented in the edge node, which generates optical codes and maps each traffic stream to specific code word. The second component is the optical filter implemented in the core node which encompasses a set of optical decoders.