Traffic performance study of all-optical label swapping isolated and full network topologies J. M. D. Mendinueta 1,2 , I. Tafur Monroy 1 , J. J. Vegas Olmos 1 , N. Yan 1 , Y. Dimitriadis 2 , I. de Miguel Jiménez 2 and A. M. J. Koonen 1 1 COBRA Research Institute, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technologie, Den Dolech 2, PO BOX 513, 5600 MB, Eindhoven, The Netherlands. E-mail: mendi@ulises.tel.uva.es 2 Higher Technical School of Telecommunications Engineering, University of Valladolid, Camino del Cementerio s/n, 47011, Valladolid, Spain. In this paper, we present simulation results of traffic performance of the All-Optical Label Swapping (AOLS) nodes. Firstly, we consider the case of a single isolated node. Secondly, we study the performance of full network topologies comprising several AOLS nodes. To cope with the features of AOLS nodes and networks a new cell optical network simulation platform has been developed. Our developed simulation environment accommodates easily arbitrary scenarios of either a single node or full connected network topologies, due to its independent treatment of the physical layer and the logical node architecture of AOLS nodes. 1. Introduction In recent years, label switching techniques such multi-protocol label swapping (MPLS) and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) have significantly boosted the packet handling speed of routing nodes. This is because of the introduction of Internet Protocol (IP) packet forwarding and switching based on swapping of short labels instead of locating the unique IP addresses. However, these techniques and protocols have been only employed in routers that use electronic or electro-optic technologies to perform routing and switching of data [1]. As traffic continues to grow, there is a foreseen bottleneck of electronic processing speed. Moreover, with the introduction of high capacity WDM transmission systems the gap between the high line bit rates and the limited processing speed at the routing nodes is further increased. All-optical label swapping (AOLS) has been proposed as a viable approach towards resolving the mismatch between fiber transmission capacity and router forwarding capacity [2]. The European Commission funded project IST-LASAGNE aims at designing and implementing the first, modular, scalable, and truly all-optical photonic router capable of operating at 40 Gb/s. The proposed AOLS architecture uses all-optical logic gates using the same fundamental building block, namely a semiconductor optical amplifier-based Mach-Zehnder interferometer (SOA-MZI) [3]. Both the payload and the label are conveyed using intensity modulation (IM), in a time-serial fashion.