The recent trend in the networking industry is rapidly progressing to a new type of networking infrastructure known as Convergent Network. Our TARGET (Telecommunications Applied Research in Gigabit and Emerging Technologies) was envisioned to create such an infrastructure in a Lab environment. We had been able to acquire enough equipment to achieve this objective. The presentation is an attempt to describe the current capabilities of this lab along with a brief discussion of the future plans to expand it.

Constraint-based path computation is a fundamental building block for traffic engineering systems such as Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching (GMPLS) networks. Path computation in large, multi-domain, multi-region or multi-layer networks is complex and may require special computational components and cooperation between the different network domains. This presentation mainly focus on the general introduction of the path computation element (PCE) based architecture and protocols of path computation in multi-domain application, together with presenting a concrete queueing model of the Multi-PCE path computation approach using OPNET, a network simulation software.

As communications networks play deeper role in people's life, new network applications and services are ever growing. Network architecture has also been undergoing significant changes. The Internet presents an easily accessible, ubiquitous platform for converged services. It is hence important to maintain a highly reliable network while accommodating various needs. Recovery schemes, under the assumption of single failure scenarios, have long been studied, where each single failure can be an independent failure of a single link, node or shared risk link group (SRLG). These schemes include both protection and restoration. However, today's network also subject to multiple element failures that may occur concurrently. However, coping with all the possible failure scenarios becomes a challenge as they are more disruptive and may require more bypass tunnels to be dealt with, when compared to single failure solutions. The objective of this talk it to explore and propose new solutions to deal with multi-failure scenarios. The main focus is on pre-planned protection using local recoveries. Two major challenges are to provide fast detection of failure status of non-adjacent network elements and to reduce the use of extra network resources, including bypass tunnels. The proposed solutions should also retain the simplicity and speed of today's (independent single failure) solutions as much as possible. This objective is achieved by using concept of Probable Failure Pattern (PFP)'s to represent multi-failure scenarios. Various expected failure patterns may be grouped into one or more clusters in order to simplify both detection and bypass tunnel pre-planning. Using the statistic model of PFP's, resource efficiency could be further improved by trade complexity such as bypass tunnel length with network performance such as recovery ratio. The identification and characterization of multiple failure patterns is also discussed in detail. A tool package that is used on a field network to collect and analyze failure statistics. Finally, the restoration realm of network recovery is investigated. Restoration schemes can deal with multiple failures by nature, since restoration path are sought on the fly. The proposed schemes could also provide differentiated reliability to achieve better network resource utilization under stress conditions.