CyBorg: a novel packet-aware transport architecture

The rapid growth of data applications is forcing service providers to seek efficient means of carrying packet data over their legacy SONET/SDH networks, designed for circuit-switched voice traffic. This problem is exacerbated by the increased deployment of new Ethernet-based VPN services over their metro networks. To support Ethernet traffic, two packet-aware SONET/SDH transport architectures have been proposed-Ethernet-over-SONET/SDH (EoS) and packet-rings (PR). In this paper, we argue that both architectures make inherent tradeoffs that limit the volume of data traffic that may be supported. Instead, we propose a hybrid architecture called CyBorg that makes selective use of EoS pipes in conjunction with a PR capability. We formulate and propose a solution to the setup failure re-arrangement problem that dynamically creates EoS pipes to supplement the existing PR if the system fails to satisfy incoming demands. We show through extensive simulations that by doing so, this novel architecture not only enables higher data traffic loads but achieves it with lower data switching capacity. We believe that this hybrid architecture and the efficiency it provides, makes for a cost-effective solution for the dilemma facing service providers.