Strongest (Integrated Project)
Start date: January 2010
End date: December 2012
STRONGEST leverages on the definition of innovative architectures for developing a scalable, flexible, resilient, energy efficient and cost-effective transport network, offering ultra-high capacity to the end users in the broadband society of the future. The new architectures will take into account the evolution of the access network technologies, but the studies carried out by the project will focus mainly on the metro and core areas, because these are the parts of the network where the main scalability issues are foreseen in the next years. Main objective: The main objective of STRONGEST is to design and demonstrate an evolutionary ultra-high capacity multilayer transport network, compatible with Gbit/s access rates, based on optimized integration of optical and packet nodes, equipped with a multi-domain, multi-technology control plane, and matching the severe requirements that are foreseen for year 2020 and beyond. This network will be able to offer: Scalability (100 times increased traffic) Flexibile bandwidth management Guaranteed end-to-end quality of service Energy efficiency (100 times reduced consumption/bit) Reduced total cost of ownership
Detailed objectives
Objective 1: Identification of target network architectures and feasibility study To identify the target architectures meeting transport network requirements and to analyse their feasibility by means of performance and techno-economic impact studies, aiming at network performance and cost optimization (see also following objectives 2-5).
Objective 2: Reduction of energy consumption To identify the best solutions for reducing the transport network energy consumption. Efficient combinations of optical and electrical components will be investigated. The consortium is aiming to foster Europe’s technology leadership in energy reduction technologies.
Objective 3: Combination of the best of transport technologies To research, develop, analyze and experimentally validate the optimum combination of L1 (Optical) and L2 (packet transport, sub-wavelength multiplexing,…) transport technologies.
Objective 4: Control plane for end-to-end service delivery To pursue end-to-end services delivery crossing domains that are heterogeneous in terms of technologies (circuit transport networks and connection-oriented packet transport networks), control plane models (e.g. multi-layer/multi-region), OAM mechanisms, vendors and operators.
Objective 5: Enabling the virtualization of resources To enable the virtualisation of resources, allowing the cooperation among heterogeneous data-plane technologies; this will permit quick and low-cost introduction of new services, independent of underlying transport platform.
Objective 6: Experimental validation To experimentally validate the investigated network and node architectures, forwarding concepts and control mechanisms, by means of an experimental implementation; quantitative laboratory investigations will be carried out. This will help in showing the proof-of-concept of the new network architectures and providing demonstration platforms that significantly facilitate and accelerate the deployment of the new technologies.
Objective 7: Contribution to standard bodies and fora To contribute to the development of new European and global interoperable standards for multi-layer and multi-domain data and control plane, thus reinforcing the European position in standardization bodies and fora. The proposed new control and management mechanisms will be presented to the relevant working groups in IETF, ETSI, OIF and ITU-T standardization organizations.
Objective 8: Fostering scientific collaborations To foster the scientific exchange and collaboration between other scientific projects and organizations such as GEYSERS, MAINS, and ETICS from EC FP7, and AKARI from Japan;
Objective 9: Education To educate European and international researchers and key staff including research managers and industrial executives.
Entities Involved: CNIT