Design alternatives for optical-packet-interconnection network architectures[Invited]

Feature Issue on Optical Interconnection Networks (OIN). In the design of an optical-packet-switching network, several policy decisions must be made and network parameters must be dimensioned. These decisions determine the network operation and performance. We present an overview of the design alternatives for optical-packet-interconnection network architectures. The issues that are discussed include contention resolution schemes, header processing, and quality-of-service support. The design of metropolitan-area packet-switched networks is also presented in a separate section.