Methods and systems relating to optical networks
Data center interconnections, which encompass WCs as well as traditional data centers, have become both a bottleneck and a cost/power issue for cloud computing providers, cloud service providers and the users of the cloud generally. Fiber optic technologies already play critical roles in data center operations and will increasingly in the future. The goal is to move data as fast as possible with the lowest latency with the lowest cost and the smallest space consumption on the server blade and throughout the network. Accordingly, it would be beneficial for new fiber optic interconnection architectures to address the traditional hierarchal time-division multiplexed (TDM) routing and interconnection and provide reduced latency, increased flexibility, lower cost, lower power consumption, and provide interconnections exploiting N×M×D Gbps photonic interconnects wherein N channels are provided each carrying M wavelength division signals at D Gbps.
1. A system comprising:
a local node comprising:
a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) based latching 1×N optical switch employing a microoptoelectromechanical (MOEMS) element;
M optical sources, each optical source operating within a predetermined wavelength range;
an optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR) generator for generating an OTDR signal, receiving the OTDR signal as reflected by an optical link to which the OTDR signal is coupled and analyzing the reflected OTDR signal;
N or M first optical couplers, each first optical coupler to couple the OTDR signal to and from a predetermined output of the N outputs of the MEMS based latching 1×N optical switch and therein each optical link of N optical links from the local node; and
a controller for determining whether to change a state of the MEMS based latching 1×N optical switch in dependence upon at least the N OTDR signals; and
a remote node comprising:
a second MEMS based latching 1×N optical switch;
R second optical couplers, each second optical coupler for extracting an optical supervisory signal (OSC) from each optical link of N optical links;
R optical detectors, each optical detector coupled to a predetermined optical coupler of the R optical couplers; and
a controller for determining whether to change the state of the second MEMS based latching 1×N optical switch in dependence upon at least the optical supervisory signals from the R optical detectors; wherein
the local node further comprises:
an OSC generator for generating the OSC signal;
N or M third optical couplers, each third optical coupler to couple the OSC signal to a predetermined output of the N outputs of the MEMS based latching 1×N optical switch and therein each optical link of N optical links;
N is a positive integer and N≥2;
M is a positive integer and M≥2; and
R is a positive integer and R=N.
2. The system according to claim 1 , further comprising;
a remote node comprising:
a second MEMS based latching 1×N optical switch;
R second optical couplers, each second optical coupler for extracting an optical supervisory signal from each optical link of N optical links;
R optical detectors, each optical detector coupled to a predetermined optical coupler of the R second optical couplers; and
a controller for determining whether to change the state of the second MEMS based latching 1×N optical switch in dependence upon optical supervisory signals from the R optical detectors; wherein
the optical supervisory signal is the OTDR signal coupled to each optical link of the N optical links.
3. The system according to claim 1 , further comprising an OSC generator for generating an OSC signal; and
N or M third optical couplers, each third optical coupler to couple the OSC signal to a predetermined output of the N outputs of the MEMS based latching 1×N optical switch and therein each optical link of N optical links.
4. The system according to claim 1 , wherein
the MEMS based latching 1×N optical switch is part of a MEMS based latching 2×N optical switch;
a first input port is coupled to one or more optical sources generating optical signals to be routed by the MEMS based latching 1×N optical switch; and
a second input port of the MEMS based latching 2×N optical switch is coupled to a second optical source for generating at least one of an optical probe signal, an optical time domain reflectometry signal and an out of band communications signal; and
the out of band communications signal is at a wavelength or wavelengths not overlapping with wavelengths of the one or more optical sources coupled to the first input port of the MEMS based latching 1×N optical switch.
5. A system comprising:
a local node comprising:
a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) based latching 1×N optical switch employing a microoptoelectromechanical (MOEMS) element;
M optical sources, each optical source operating within a predetermined wavelength range;
an optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR) generator for generating an OTDR signal, receiving the OTDR signal as reflected by an optical link to which the OTDR signal is coupled and analyzing the reflected OTDR signal;
N or M first optical couplers, each first optical coupler to couple the OTDR signal to and from a predetermined output of the N outputs of the MEMS based latching 1×N optical switch and therein each optical link of N optical links from the local node; and
a controller for determining whether to change a state of the MEMS based latching 1×N optical switch in dependence upon at least the N OTDR signals; and
a remote node comprising:
a second MEMS based latching 1×N optical switch;
R second optical couplers, each second optical coupler for extracting an optical signal from each optical link of N optical links;
R optical detectors, each optical detector coupled to a predetermined optical coupler of the N optical couplers; and
a controller for determining whether to change the state of the second MEMS based latching 1×N optical switch in dependence upon at least the optical signals from the R optical detectors; wherein
the local node further comprises:
an optical supervisory signal (OSC) generator for generating an OSC signal; and
N or M third optical couplers, each third optical coupler to couple the OSC signal to a predetermined output of the N outputs of the MEMS based latching 1×N optical switch and therein each optical link of N optical links; and
each optical signal of the optical signals from the N optical detectors is at least one of the OSC signal and the OTDR signal.