"Optical Interconnects in Future Data Center Networks" covers optical networks and how they can be used to provide high bandwidth, energy efficient interconnects for future data centers with increased communication bandwidth requirements. This contributed volume presents an integrated view of the future requirements of the data centers and serves as a reference work for some of the most advanced solutions that have been proposed by major universities and companies.

Collecting the most recent and innovative optical interconnects for data center networks that have been presented in the research community by universities and industries, this book is a valuable reference to researchers, students, professors and engineers interested in the domain of high performance interconnects and data center networks. Additionally, "Optical Interconnects in Future Data Center Networks" provides invaluable insights into the benefits and advantages of optical interconnects and how they can be a promising alternative for future data center networks. "

Optical Interconnects in Future Data Center Networks covers optical networks and how they can be used to provide high bandwidth, energy efficient interconnects for future data centers with increased communication bandwidth requirements. This contributed volume presents an integrated view of the future requirements of the data centers and serves as a reference work for some of the most advanced solutions that have been proposed by major universities and companies. Collecting the most recent and innovative optical interconnects for data center networks that have been presented in the research community by universities and industries, this book is a valuable reference to researchers, students, professors and engineers interested in the domain of high performance interconnects and data center networks. Additionally, Optical Interconnects in Future Data Center Networks provides invaluable insights into the benefits and advantages of optical interconnects and how they can be a promising alternative for future data center networks.

The explosive growth of data, particularly internet traffic, has led to a dramatic increase in demand for transmission bandwidth imposing an immediate requirement for broadband networks. The primary objective of the COST 291 Action "Towards Digital Optical Networks" was to focus on novel network concepts, subsystems and architectures to enable future telecommunication networks, exploiting the features and properties of photonic technologies.

Three working groups were established to deal with these research objectives:

WG1 "Optical processing for digital network performance," dealt with the physical layer and implementation related issues of transparent optical networks such as optical signal per bit processing, optical switch architecture designs and implementations as well as transmission related issues.

WG2 "Novel network architectures," focused on the evolution of network scenarios including novel network architectures. Also different node architectures and technologies in terms of network performance and functionality were investigated. Three different architectures were studied and compared: circuit (wavelength, waveband, etc.), optical burst and optical packet switched networks.

WG3 "Unified control plane, network resilience and service security," dealt as well with the impact of transparency on photonic network architectures and the associated control and protocol issues as on network survivability and security issues, covering topics such as protection and restoration, its impact on routing and wavelength assignment algorithms, fault isolation, disaster recovery, etc.

The results obtained within these working groups are collected in this volume.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International IFIP-TC6 Conference on Optical Network Design and Modeling, ONDM 2007, held in Athens, Greece, in May 2007.

The 41 revised full papers presented together with 14 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from over 90 submissions. The papers address all recent advances in the design, modeling and implementation of optical networks, including novel switching schemes and paradigms, network optimization and design, new concepts for link and control layer protocols, advanced network subsystems and node architectures, and network inter-working schemes.