A comparison of in-fiber and out-of-fiber GMPLS-based control plane configurations: Benefits, drawbacks and solutions

Current GMPLS standardization allows control plane deployment to be either physically or only logically separated from the data plane, describing out-of-fiber or in-fiber control plane configurations. It is widely accepted, that the out-of-fiber strategy provides enhanced flexibility, which derives from the natural separation of both planes. Nonetheless, such a configuration poses new challenges to protocol designers, aiming to provide the control plane with the resilience and automation required for evolving optical networks. In this paper, we discuss benefits and drawbacks of an out-of-fiber control plane configuration. Furthermore, we evaluate key GMPLS functionalities by experimental results over the ASON/GMPLS CARISMA Test-bed, thus giving insight into the applicability of GMPLS to future optical networks. The results on obtained performance are subsequently disclosed.