This paper presents an overview of recent and current work being conducted in the “Agile All-Photonic Networks”, AAPN, Research Network. An AAPN is a wavelength division multiplexed network that consists of several overlaid stars formed by edge nodes that aggregate traffic, interconnected by bufferless optical core nodes that perform fast switching in order to provide bandwidth allocation in sub-wavelength granularities. The architectures, tools and methods being developed for its operation are described, as well as the issues to be solved. Keywords: optical networks, WDM, TDM, OBS, traffic aggregation, bandwidth allocation, scheduling.

In this paper, we study a new concept of traffic grooming in wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) ring networks that aims at eliminating both the bandwidth underutilization and the scalability concerns that are typical of all-optical wavelengthrouted ring networks. Our objective is to reduce the network cost while preserving the benefits of all-optical WDM ring networks. In order to assess the efficiency of our proposal, all underlying network costs are compared. These costs include that of the transceivers required at node level, as well as the number of wavelengths. Our results show that the proposed aggregation technique can significantly improve the resource utilization while reducing the network cost.

recent research in the area of optical packet switching is reviewed, the main problems in the area are identified and a possible solution to some of the problems, optical burst switching, is studied in more detail. Optical burst switching and the JET protocol are studied by means of a simulation program specially built for this purpose. Optical packet networks are networks, where the switching operations are performed optically, and the data remains in optical domain through the transmission. There have already been several implementations of optical packet switching in laboratory environment, but commercial solutions are not expected within a few next years. This is due to the infancy of optical devices. Although the networks and the components have developed rapidly, there are still many unsolved questions. The main problems at the moment are the lack of optical random access memory and very high switching rates needed. A few solutions that try to overcome these problems, and still offer the benefits of optical packet switching, have been