Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Yawei Yin

Jamie Dorea Gaudette

Binbin Guan

Nikolaj Skallerud Bjorner

Rachee Singh

John Frederick Arnold

Karthikeyan Balasubramanian

Lihua Yuan

Denizcan Billor

Chuan Qin

Liban Buni

Systems and methods are provided for implementing a free space optical backplane structure including a body and a plurality of mirrors. The body includes a chamber, a front panel, and a plurality of apertures disposed in the front panel, the plurality of apertures including a first set of apertures and a second set of apertures. The plurality of mirrors includes first and second arrays of mirrors mounted at first and second sets of heights, respectively, within the chamber, and is aligned with the first and second sets of apertures located in the front panel. The first and second arrays of mirrors are arranged to direct laser signals travelling through free space that are transmitted from or to a first device through the first set of apertures, between the first and second arrays of mirrors, and to or from a corresponding second device through the second set of apertures.

Optical transport terminal node architecture with free space optical backplane

An optical communications network comprises optical data links comprising data channels. A time-domain sampled waveform of a selected data channel is obtained. The Fourier transform is applied to the time-domain sampled waveform of the selected data channel to generate a frequency-domain waveform of the selected data channel. Time-domain sampled waveforms of the selected data channels neighboring data channels are obtained. The Fourier transform is applied to the time-domain sampled waveforms of the neighboring data channels to generate frequency-domain waveforms of the neighboring data channels. The noise-to-signal ratio is calculated based on the frequency-domain waveforms. Based on the calculated noise-to-signal ratio, an optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) penalty is estimated. A notification is generated when the OSNR penalty exceeds a predetermined threshold.

Characterization of inter-channel crosstalk in an optical network

Systems and methods are provided for determining an optical bypass for an inter-regional wide area network (WAN) for regions of server facilities of a cloud service provider. In particular, the optical bypass connects non-adjacent regional server centers of the WAN by eliminating needs of data conversions at intermediate regional server centers. The determining the optical bypass includes receiving a WAN topology data, capacity and demand information about the WAN. The determining includes an objective function to maximize a number of network resources to free up by determining a revised data flow and bandwidth allocations by introducing the optical bypass in the WAN. The disclosed technology transmits the determined data traffic flow and resource allocation information of the optical bypass, causing a network traffic enforcers to reconfigure the WAN.

Methods for capacity provisioning in wide area networks using optical bypassing

A power transient event detection system includes a first bank of photodetectors (PDs) located within a first node of an optical communication system. Each PD within the first bank of PDs has a different response time. The system further includes an output signal monitor that monitors signal output from each of the PDs in the first bank and that logs power transient event detection information. A transient event characterizer identifies, based on the logged event detection information, a subset of the PDs in the first bank that observed a power transient event, and determines a duration of the power transient event based on an amount of time that the signal output satisfies low signal criteria for at least one PD in the subset.

Power transient event detection in optical communication systems

An optical communications network comprises optical data links interconnected by add-drop nodes, the optical data links comprising data channels. The data channels are allocated into equal-sized bins. In response to a first data channel request between a given source-destination pair, one of the equal-sized bins is assigned to the data channel request. In response to requests for additional bandwidth for the same source-destination data channel request, unused channels within the assigned equal-sized bin are allocated to the data channel request. In response to subsequent data channel requests between different source-destination pairs, additional unallocated equal-sized bins are assigned to the subsequent data channel requests. In response to subsequent data channel requests when resource sharing for one equal-sized bin, data channels in the last equal-sized bin are assigned using the reverse channel assignment process. Reverse channel assignment can also be used for other bins as an option.

Efficient spectrum allocation in a multi-node optical network

A preFEC BER of a selected optical link is determined. A FEC Detected Degrade (FDD) threshold, FEC Excessive Degrade (FED) threshold, and FEC limit threshold are obtained for the selected optical link. The FDD threshold is less than the FED threshold and the FED threshold is less than the FEC limit. Based on the FDD threshold, FED threshold, the FEC limit, and a determination that a postFEC BER==0, it is determined whether a link down condition of the selected optical link can be asserted or de-asserted.

Hysteresis-based link flapping prevention in an optical network

An optical communications network comprises optical data links comprising data channels. A time-domain sampled waveform of a selected data channel is obtained. The Fourier transform is applied to the time-domain sampled waveform of the selected data channel to generate a frequency-domain waveform of the selected data channel. Time-domain sampled waveforms of the selected data channel's neighboring data channels are obtained. The Fourier transform is applied to the time-domain sampled waveforms of the neighboring data channels to generate frequency-domain waveforms of the neighboring data channels. The noise-to-signal ratio is calculated based on the frequency-domain waveforms. Based on the calculated noise-to-signal ratio, an optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) penalty is estimated. A notification is generated when the OSNR penalty exceeds a predetermined threshold.

In an optical communications network, the supervisory control signal is duplicating at the OSI layer 2 or layer 3 level to generate a primary supervisory control signal and a secondary supervisory control signal. Access to the primary supervisory control signal is enabled at a network interface of a network device. In response to detecting a failure of the optical communications network or the device, access to the primary supervisory control signal is disabled and access to the secondary supervisory control signal is enabled.

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Yawei Yin