--snip--
2.
Considering wavelength conversion
inevitably brings to the problem of looped paths, which is a completely
new
ball game in path computation, and I am surprised that the issue was
never
mentioned in the draft.
--> How is this different
from the
"looping" that can occur with a TDM multiplexer in a drop and
continue mode? Also in these two circuit cases (TDM, and optical) do
we
have the same danger as in the packet case where looping traffic can
greatly
degrade other flows. Was there some general looping concerns already
published for GMPLS with respect to circuits?
IB>>
There is a profound difference.
I am not talking here about accidental looping, rather about deliberate
looping: if some nodes can perform wavelength conversion while others
can not,
then you will want to route the connection to one or several conversion
points
and after that get it back on the main path. In other words you will
deliberately request, say, a PCE to produce looped path, and then GMPLS
RSVP-TE
to signal looped path, which is completely out of normal paradigm of
work for
both PCE and RSVP.