An Extension of Stochastic Process Algebra for Optical Networks

Tony Tsang
Department of Computing
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
. . Hung Hom, Hong Kong.
ttsang@ieee.org

Abstract- An open research topic is how t o com- ing requirements in multimedia applications. It can
bine the real-time traffic with the conventional also model and analyze distribution of the real-time
formal language t o allow modelling and efficient profile of photonic packet waiting for services. In all-
analysis of optical Communication systems. We optical networks, the data remain in the optical do-
present a formal modelling language, called Real- main throughout their path and switching except a t
Time Stochastic Process Algebra (RT-SPA), t o de-
scribe t h e real-time stochastic behaviour of optical the ends. The currently favored technology to tap the
communication systems. The language combines huge bandwidth of optical fiber is Dense Wave Divi-
conventional stochastic process algebra with real- sion Multiplexing (DWDM). The optical spectrum is
time semantics t o describe complex systems in a divided into many different channels in DWDM net-
compositional manner. It includes timed transi- works, each channel corresponding to a different wave-
tion, parallel composition, probabilistic branching length, which can operate at the peak electronic speed.
and hard real-time aspects. With this performance The wavelength of DWDM networks can be reused pro-
analysis methodology it is possible t o obtain the vided no two lightpaths sharing a link are assigned the
design parameters of implementation using simu-
lation with a lower computational time and cost same wavelength. Therefore, efficient internetworking
than using conventional techniques. The adequacy of higher-layer protocols, most notably Internet Pro-
of this framework applicability check is assessed by tocol (IP) over DWDM networks, has become more
applying it to model and analyze wavelength-routed important. IP over DWDM has the potential to drasti-
packet buffering techniques for optical networks. cally increase photonic packet switching capacity. It is
Key words: Stochastic process algebra; RT-SPA; extremely important to ensure a low packet loss prob-
real-time traffic; optical networks. ability while achieving a relatively high throughput
[7]. This can be achieved by incorporating the optical
buffering techniques. With the motivation of minimiz-
I. INTRODUCTION ing the complexity of photonic packet switching sys-
The analysis of systems with respect to their perfor- tems, wavelength-routed and input-buffered photonic
mance is a crucial aspect in the design cycle of concur- packet switch design is used. The scheduling and input
rent information and communications systems. There buffering schemes to improve performance of photonic
is a growing tendency towards the integration of per- packet switch can be introduced into the formulation,
formance modelling and analysis into formal methods. and their parametric can be estimated using RT-SPA.
This integration has potential benefits for the appli- The following sections briefly present the definition of
cation of both formal methods and performance anal- the RT-SPA model. The model is then applied to an-
ysis, which make formal models readily available for alyze performance of scheduling and input buffering
analysis. Process algebra [l,21 is radically behaviour schemes in photonic packet switch. Presentation of
oriented. Systems are modelled in process algebra by the simulation experiments with discussion conclude
describing the possible behaviours they can exhibit to the paper.
the external environment. This approach led to pow-
erful composition operators as means to compose be- 11. NOTATIONA N D DEFINITIONS
haviour hierarchically. However, process algebra does
not include modelling the stochastic behaviour of a RT-SPA is process algebraic language which sup-
communication system, described as the composition ports the compositional description of concurrent and
of the time and probability behaviours of its compo- distributed systems and analysis of their performances.
nents. Stochastic Process Algebra (SPA) .,[3:5] has The basic elements of RT-SPA are its actions, which
emerged as a promising way to carry out compositional represent activities carried out by the systems being
performance and reliability modelling, mostly on the modelled, and its operators, which are used to com-
basis of process algebra and stochastic behaviours de- pose algebraic descriptions.
scription. These process description languages cannot Time point
support the temporal relationships between actions. A time point is a time instant with respect to the
Moreover, they cannot model and' analyze the pre- global clock of the 'system; it does not have duration.
cise real-time behaviours in the optical'networks. A It specifies the starting and stopping times of an ac-
SPA based model, called Real-Time SPA (RT-SPA), tion. Using a time point, we can instruct the system to
is prepared to model and analyze performance of opti- generate an action at a particular point in time. Time
cal networks including real-time behaviours. RT-SPA point progresses consistently in all parts of the sys-
adds new semantics to SPA, which combines real-time tem. More formally, the time point is defined by using
queuing theory [6], by allowing tasks to have real-time a discrete time domain, which contains the following
behaviours of optical networks to satisfy the task tim- properties:

0-7803-8114-9/03/$17.00 02003 IEEE. 615

 -V t 3 t' t < t' A V t" : t < t" =+ t' 5 t"
We assume a fixed set of clocks t = {b, . . . , t i } . The
special time point to , which is called the start time
point, always has the value 0.
Time Constraint
An action can exist for a period of time; this dnra-
tion is called the time constraint of the action. A time
constraint has a starting and an ending point. It con-
sists of a lower-bound and an upper-bound time point,
where the lower-bound time point enables an action
in a module, and the upper-bound time point disables
the action at that point in time. Formally, we define a
time constraint in the following:
Z = {IT&,", T ~ I V ~t; E ]T.}with 0 5 TL," 5 T;,, .
Timed Action
A timed action is a tuple < a , A, 7 > consisting of
the type of the action a , the rate of the action A and
temporal constraint of the action 7. The type denotes
the kind of action, such astransmission of data pack-
ets, while the rate indicates the speed at which the ac-
tion occurs from the view of an extcrnal observer. The
rates are used to .denote the random variables spec-
ifying the duration of the actions. The actions can
be defined in different types of probability distribution
function such as Exponential, Poisson, Constant, G e e
metric and Uniform distribution. Moreover, each tran-
sition is also bounded b y a temporal constraint. In this
section, some basic notations and operation semantics
about RT-SPA are briefly introduced.
A. Syntax of the Language
The syntax of RT-SPA is defined in the following:
P . : : = s t o p / < a , A , I > . P . /P + Q I P e r , 7 Q /
E
P ?L Q I P P,T Q I P l L I A
The conventional stochastic process algebra operators
and the additional operations are interpreted in the
.
following:
.stop is an inactive process.
< a , X , T > .P,whichstandsforaprefixoperator,
where the type of the action is a probability dis-
tribution function (pdf) type a , with the activity
rate denoted by A , and the temporal constraint of
component is 7. It subsequently behaves as P. Se-
quences of actions can be combined to build up a
time constraint for an action. The time constraint
. 7 is defined as above.
P + Q is choice combinator capturing the possi-
bility of competition or selection between different
possible activities. It represents a system which
may behave either as P or as Q. All the current
actions P and Q are enabled. The first action to
complete distinguishes one of the processes. The
other process of the choice is discarded. The sys-
tem will then behave as the derivative resulting -
. from the evolution of the.chosen process.
P Qdenotes the probabilistic choice with the
conventional -generatiye interpretation, thus with
probability r.the process behaves like P and with
probability 1 - T it behaves like Q hounded with
the time constraint 7 . . rate restricted by A , R,,x is defined as
P L,Twl Q is a cooperation, in which the two ax-
tions P and Q are parallel, synchronizing on all
616
activities whose type is in the cooperation set L
of action types. The lifetime of two actions is
the time constraint 7 . These two actions are
disabled when the time constraint expires. Any
action whose type is not in L will proceed inde-
pendently. As a syntactic convenience the parallel
combinator is defined by #m, T , where the coopera-
tion set L is empty and the lifetime of two actions
.
. is7.
P R
p , ~ Q is an unary operator which returns
the set of actions that meet the temporal pred-
icate condition specified by 7 . P
' consists of sev-
eral predicates combined with the boolean con-
nectives: 'And' ,'Or', Exclusiveor (EXOR)' and
'Not'.
E
A " ~ , T means both actions can occur dur-
x
ing the interval 7 . or,=means that one or
both of actions can occur during the interval 7 .
x
EXOR,= means that one of these actions occurs, it
immediately determines whether P or Q can s u b
sequently occur during the triggered interval 7 .
x
,vot.~means that both actions do not occur during
the interval 7 .
P / L is a hiding operation, where the set L of vis-
ible action types identifies those activities which
are to be considered internal or private to the com-
ponent. These activities are not visible to an ex-
ternal observer, nor are they accessible to other
. components for cooperation.
A := Pis a countable set of constants.
B. Queueing Combinator with Real-time Constraint
The definition of queueing model with time con-
straint 7 is given in the following:
Qa(sli'..)Sn) := ( n
" L S E ]
. . s,)Lm,7
"=I
Ra
This.notation means that Q,(Sl, ;. . ,Sn) allows each
S;, 1 5 i 5 n, to proceed in parallel, independent of
each other, and only enforces synchronization of each
Si with a distinguished process, on action types deter-
mined by each S, and the type set a . If each S, of a
subset of processes currently enables an activity whose
action types is in a , each Si which must queue in
S, processes is allowed to proceed. R, is the arbiter
process and Lais the cooperationset. The queue model
is bounded with a time constraint 7 .The arbiter is
assu.med that for every queue activity a, which may be
enable by a process P , there exists an enabling action
type for p for P. Then an arbiter process R;is defined
which enforces the required queueing discipline.
. Let P = &.(SI,, , . , &)he a process with a queueing
discipline, Let X be a sequence of rates (XI,. . . ,A,) ,
which any S, will perform its queue activity dependent
on the current queue length. This process is bounded
with a time constraint 7 . Then the arbiter process
Q,,X(~I, . . . ,&) := ( I"I si) L.,TW
;=I
&,A
C. Lead-time Transition 1

The real-time queueing theory has been developed

that allows keeping track of the timing behavior of each
of the tasks in the system. This theory focuses on the
lead-time of each task, where lead-time is defined to be
the time until the task's deadline expires, a quantity
that decreases at unit rate until the task finishes pro-
cessing. It can model and analyze the real-time traf-
fic of a communication system to satisfy the real-time
requirements of multimedia applications. Integrating
the lead-time profile of customer waiting for services to
the lead-time transition of RT-SPA, is defined in the
following:
&[(So, ..., Sn) :=
n S,).L~,~
(n r w RI
,=0
Fig. 1. Structure of the tool
Let S be a finite set of states. Let 'SO E S be the initial
state. Let Act be a finite set of action labels. Let -be
defined as follows: a model. TIPPtool[S] offers a set of,solution algo-
-+C S x Act x S
-
If (z, 4 ( s ) , p, y ) E , there is a lead-time transition
fromstate z t o state ywith thelead-time state +(s)and
rithms for steady state analysis as well as transient
analysis of the underlying CTMC. The specifications
of the model as well as the measure and experiment
results are supported through a Tcl/Tk-graphical user
time profile (a), '3,' z y can also be written. interface of the TIPPtool. The time constraint and
The state space of an ordinary GI/G/1 queue real-time queueing components are integrated into the
(using the method of supplementary variables) is existing TIPPtool's user interface and analysis algm
(m, T , l l , . . . ,1,) , where mis the number of customers in rithms in our tool. These extensions of TIPPtool can
queue, Tis the length of time since the last customer ar- be used for the performability evaluation of a real-time
rived, and 1,is the lead-time (the time unit the deadline related communication system, which can also predict
is reached) of the i th customer. In particular, we must the real-time design parameters of such system. The
keep track of a dynamic variable for each customer, its RT-SPA specification can be created by means of an
lead-time. At time t , the lead-time of a customer is editor which is provided by the integrated tool. The
the difference between its absolute deadline and the Generate and Reduce modules are responsible for the
current time, hence a customer's lead-time decreases generation of the semantic model respectively for the
linearly with time. During an interval [ t, t+6], if a cus- reduction of the LTS according to certain equivalence.
tomer has not departed, then its lead-time is reduced The Options module can specify various measures, like
by b . Negative lead-times are possible and indicate probability for certain states or the throughput of some
that a customer is,late. The lead-times ( h, 12,. . . , l,) actions. The Experiment module contains information
can be associated with a measure on a subset of real about activity rates and generates numerical results for
space R , that measure being the number of customers different values of a certain design parameter. The An-
with lead-times in the subset. Since m is, in general, alyze module provides several numerical solution meth-
inbounded, so the state space. Thus the state space ods for the steady state analysis as well as for the tran-
becomes ( $(s), /3(~)). A, discrete transform 4(s) of sient analysis of Marko chains. An experiment can be
the lead-times is introduced: specified so the results are presented graphically with
the Xgraph module. The export module provides in-
terfaces to other tools. .The structure of the integrated
tool is shown in Figure 1.

Iv. AN APPLEATION
where lJ is the lead-time of the j t h customer and i =
a. Note that the number of customers is implicitly
contained in the state space since Q(0) = m .
A. Model wavelength routed optical networks
Modelling the optical network considered here,
clients are attached to an optical core network, and
111. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS METHOD connected to their peers over dynamically switched o p
For RT-SPA model with finite state space the under- tical paths spanning potentially multiple optical cross-
lying Continuous Time Markov Chain (CTMC) can connect devices [9]. Each optical cross-connect device
be derived directly by associating a state with each is assumed to be capable of switching a data stream
node of the Labeled Transition System (LTS). The from a given input port to a given output port. This
transitions of the CTMC are the amalgamation of all switching function is controlled by appropriately con-
the arcs joining the arcs joining the nodes, and the figuring a cross-connect table. IP/GMPLS (General-
transition rate is the sum of the individual activity ized Multi-Protocol Label Switching) [lo] routers b e
rates. The action name information is not incorpo- come the optical cross-connect devices. IP/GMPLS
rated into the CTMC representation but it is often is a tighter integration between IP and optical layers,
crucial in defining the measures to be extracted from which offers a series of advantages over the multi-layer

61L7
architecture model. The generalized mult-protocol la-
bel switching contains a high-level view of lightpath
routing and signalling processes using various build-
ing blocks of control plane. There are three main
components involved in setting up a channel in multi-
protocol label switching for lightpath routing in optical
networks, as shown in Figure 2. The resource discov-
ery component states information of network resources
such as network connectivity, link capacity, and spe-
cial constraints is derived. The mechanisms used to
disseminate the state information are specified. The
lightpath switching component is used to select an
appropriate rout t.hrough the intelligent optical net-
work for the requested lightpath. It is implemented Fig. 2. GMPLS building blocks architecture
by introducing the concept of constraint-based rout-
ing which is used to compute paths that satisfy certain
constraints, including Constraints imposed by the o p
erational environment. and physical layer limitations.
The path management component includes label dis-
tribution, path setup, path maintenance, and path re-
vocation/teardown.
With the motivation of minimizing the complexity
of photonic IP packet switching .systems, we apply
a wavelength-routed, input buffered photonic packet
switch in which packet buffering is performed before
routing packets to their desired outputs [Ill. This
packet switch 'model is less complex than other ,pro-
posed architectures and scales become linearly with the
switch size N . This design model simplicity is achieved
by using a wavelength-routed packet buffer where mul-
tiple packet streams arriving at different inputs of a
photonic packet switch can share a single pool of opti-
cal fiber travelling delay-lines,hy means of wavelength
routing techniques. However, when using this packet Fig. 3. Wavelength-routed photonic packet switch archi-
buffer architecture, the buffering capacity is limited by tecture
the tuning range of the tunable wavelength converters.
Each incoming signal is converted within a transpon- buffering and scheduling techniques can be modelled
der to a wavelength generated by a tunable laser that and analysed using RT-SPA to further reduce packet
can be remotely ,controlled by network management, loss probahility and block probability to address the
and is then passed to an arrayed waveguide router. packet sequence in the wavelength-routed photonic
This device is p,assive and can be built with hundreds of -
packet switch.
ports. It has the property that the path taken through A simple wavelength-routed input-buffered photonic
it depends on the wavelength offered at the input, so
uacket swit,ch examule is investirated. uarametric in
controlling the laser wavelength determines the path the number of inpit ports and iutput'ports. Each
through the overall switch system. It gives a passive input port generates packets and then delivers them to
switch formed from glass, whose paths depend in effect a buffer, then transports to output ports. We restrict
on the colour chosen at each moment by each laser. It the buffer size to j packets, where 0 5 i < j . The
provides switch core of very high reliability and pro- packet arrival rate and its time constraint are denoted
vides an almost linear model as traffic increases and by Xi-1 anti Z , respectively. The packet service rate
more ports ate added, which are the ideal attributes
for the architecture of an optical cross connect device. and its time constraint are denoted by Xj-l and 5 ,
This wavelength-routed photonic -packet switch k c h i - respectively. '
tectnre is illustrated jn Figure 3. Buffer0 := .C put,X1,.T, > . Buffer1
Buffer, := -: put, > .Bufferi+l@
B. RT-SPA Specafication < get, A,..l, '2-i >,.Bu#eri-~
A wavelength-routed packet buffer is modelled and Buffer, := -c get,Aj-1,7;-1 > .Bufferj-l
analysed combining optical fiber travelling delay lines The time constraints are defined by
with optical fiber delay-line loops and assuming the v 2 , 5t>[Ti,", 7 i m L1 [T,"." > I
T3mOil E [Nx NI I Tj"" 5
travelling delay lines used for packet buffering,are su- TL, A ~ t - I~ Tim- .
perior over delay-line loops in terms of simplicity and The purpoze of packet buffering and scheduling is to
signal quality. The effectiveness of the packet huffer is prevent multiple packets from c0ntending.a given out-
modelled and evaluated by computer simulation using put of the switch at a time. Let T, be the number of
a real-time profile model of RT-SPA. Different packet time slots that are used for scheduling. The value of

618
 N-I oil,
.
.
...
.......,...-..,..,
~

,.,"...".
,..*n"ls".
1-
.-c
i
G

-
1
.:
.
.
.
.
syntax and semantics of RT-SPA, and have put the
language in the context of real-time queueing model.
This model was remarkably accurate for the simula-
tion and analysis presented. We have applied RT-SPA
t o a wavelength-routed photonic packet buffer, which
combines the buffering and scheduling algorithms. We
have conducted computer simulation to examine the ef-
fectiveness of different buffering spaces and scheduling
techniques. With our performance analysis metbod-
ology it is possible to obtain the design parameters
of implementation using simulation hut with a lower
computational time and cost than using conventional
'techniques. Thus, the performance of a new optical
network can be estimated in a flexible and simplistic
way. This paper will he too lengthy if it were to con-
tain as well the performance analysis results which are
thus not included.

Fig. 4. Packet scheduling

T, will determine the maximum delay a packet will be
assigned when it enters the switch. The packet schedul-
ing is to quickly find an idle time slot at-the i input.
Subsequently, such an idle time slot T, is referred t o
as a matched idle time slot. Any matched idle time
slot can he assigned t o the packet, hut the one with
the minimum delay will be applied. The signal Idle
is periodically emitted by a synchronizing process, as
illustrated in Figure 4.
. Input, := < put, At,Z > . < T, > . Input" fB
< Idle > . InputIdlei
Inputldle, := < put, A,,Z > . < T,+1 > .
Inputldle, @ < Idle > . Input,
The switching component simply takes packets out
of the buffer and routs t o the destined output ports
within a certain time. This hierarchical characteriza-
tion can be expressed hy the lead-time profile of each
switching session using the lead-time transition as the
above section denoted.
Switch := < get, 8,' I > . < rout > . Switch.
Where @denotesthe lead-time profile of customer and
7 denotes the time constraint of action. The overall
structure becomes in the following:
System :=
( Input, L,,T~ Bufferk
E4
The Input and Switch are parametric. Using RT-SPA
1" Switch,
L~,X
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We want t o thank the staffs at the Department
of Computer Science VII, University of Erlangen-
Niirnberg, Germany, for making the tool TIPPtool
available to us for this work.
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V. CONCLUSION
RT-SPA was shown to offer the compositionality and
real-time interoperability t o model and analyze the
real-time traffic in optical networking. We have defined

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