Influence of Multilayer Traffic Engineering Timing Parameters on Network Performance

Recent advances in optical networking technology have moved the state-of-the-art from manually installed fiber connections to fully automatic switched lightpaths. Multilayer Traffic Engineering (MTE) in an IP-over-Optical network allows to leverage rapid lightpath setup/teardown as a cross-layer traffic engineering technique. It enables on-the-fly reconfiguration of the IP layer logical topology and up/downgrade of the capacity of IP links. Together with classical IP layer routing techniques, MTE intelligently solves problems such as IP layer congestion and packet loss and it may optimize optical layer capacity usage and total network throughput. In this, the rate at which MTE can make adjustments to the network is limited by technology and stability concerns. We present some example MTE techniques and discuss how the timing parameters of these mechanisms impact perceived network performance.