Homepage: http://wotbl.disi.unitn.it/

WOTBL Initial Mission

The starting configuration of the Test-Bed is the following:

The main building blocks in the figure are:

  • 4 sites for the R&D, management and accessing to the Testbed; in detail: 
    • POVO1: main site for R&D, management and access to the Testbed
    • TN-P: main site for accessing to the Testbed 
    • TN-S1: subordinate site for accessing to the Testbed 
    • TN-S2: subordinate site for accessing to the Testbed 
  • Connection among sites: the backbone link will be made up of dedicated fibers and/or dark fibers. 
  • Connection with global Network will be performed through public and experimental network, e.g., GEANT, GARR, ...

WOTBL Networking Roadmap

This testbed activities will focus on issues that are emerging as the consequence of the Internet continuous growth (faster than "Moore's Law"), and the multitude of new services covering all aspects of ever-day life. During the next 10-15 years it is envisioned that the Internet will undergo several major transitions with respect to technologies, services and size. Bandwidth demands are expected to grow up to 50-100 folds. The long-term testbed activities focus on the following initial challenges: 

  1. reducing the cost & energy per gigabit/s switching and thereby improving scalability for what is called today "GREEN INTERNET"; 
  2. providing performance guarantees that are independent of the network size and instant load; 
  3. combining broadband mobile wireless seamlessly with the core/metro networks; and 
  4. experimenting and validating future networking paradigms before full deployment takes place.  

WOTBL introduces a new methodology for future Internet design, implementation and validation, which is divided into 6 R&D areas, as shown in the following figure:

Current Test-Bed

The current testbed is based on the IP-FLOW Project that was implemented in DISI Electronic Laboratory [IP-FLOW was supported by funds from the European Commission]. The IP-FLOW testbed utilizes UTC-based pipeline forwarding in order to solve two major bottleneck problems:

  1. Solving the switch bottleneck problem - specifically, how to construct a multi-terabit/S switch in a single chassis  providing much lower energy consumption for what is called "GREEN INTERNET;" and
  2. Solving the bandwidth mismatch problem between optical and wireless network, which is a link bottleneck problem. Proper solutions of the two bottleneck problems are critical for ensuring proper network operation and users' satisfaction, and consequently, improving the IP networks services and business perspective.

WOTBL All-optical Underlay (R&D Area 2)

The current DISI testbed will be used to design, implement and deploy four all-optical nodes for WOTBL Underlay, see the figures below.

This all-optical network has extremely low energy consumption, and thereby, it is a major step towards the "Green Internet" objective.

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