IEEE Global Conference for Advancement in Technology (GCAT)
Integration of SDN Controller, Time-Sliding Window, and Quantum Key Distribution with Resource Allocation Strategy in Optical Networks for High Security
Resource Allocation/ Assignment in optical communication is extremely essential to enable effective and secure communication in optical networks. There have been various strategies suggested by people around the world and research for which is aggressively on-going and thriving. In this paper, we will be discussing about the enhanced quantum key distribution (QKD), Time Sliding Window (TSW), Software Defined Network Controller (SDN) and its implementation in Routing, wavelength and time slot assignment (RWTA) networks. As we know that with the advancements in technology and with advent of quantum computers, the present cryptographic techniques are vulnerable to hacking and eavesdropping, which is a grave concern when it comes to implement this powerful technology in the finance and the defence industry. Therefore, there is an utmost need of secure mechanism for data transmission in optical networks. To explain further, here we address QKD implementation with enhanced AES algorithm and Software defined Networking (SDN) based QKD enabled architecture for efficient management of resources/data. With the implementation of such an architecture the issue of time conflict possibility in case of dynamic requests may arise, this issue has been addressed with time-sliding window mechanism as a possible solution.
Resource Allocation/ Assignment in optical communication is extremely essential to enable effective and secure communication in optical networks. There have been various strategies suggested by people around the world and research for which is aggressively on-going and thriving. In this paper, we will be discussing about the enhanced quantum key distribution (QKD), Time Sliding Window (TSW), Software Defined Network Controller (SDN) and its implementation in Routing, wavelength and time slot assignment (RWTA) networks. As we know that with the advancements in technology and with advent of quantum computers, the present cryptographic techniques are vulnerable to hacking and eavesdropping, which is a grave concern when it comes to implement this powerful technology in the finance and the defence industry. Therefore, there is an utmost need of secure mechanism for data transmission in optical networks. To explain further, here we address QKD implementation with enhanced AES algorithm and Software defined Networking (SDN) based QKD enabled architecture for efficient management of resources/data. With the implementation of such an architecture the issue of time conflict possibility in case of dynamic requests may arise, this issue has been addressed with time-sliding window mechanism as a possible solution.
Optical network security is attracting increasing research interest. Currently, software defined optical network (SDON) has been proposed to increase network intelligence, which is gradually moving towards industrialization. However, new threats are emerging, e.g., control messages transferred via the control channels are vulnerable to eavesdropping and interception. Data encryption is an effective way to enhance the security of connection as well as control messages transferred in SDON. Noticeably, quantum key distribution (QKD) is being considered as a secure mechanism to provision keys for confidential data encryption, which is a potential technique to protect communications from security attacks in SDONs. How to utilize QKD to enhance the SDON security is emerging as a new issue. This paper proposes a novel QKD-enabled SDON architecture, and discusses some open issues and challenges such as resource allocation, security level, trusted repeater node placement and resiliency under such an architecture. Moreover, this paper also proposes an algorithmic solution to resource allocation issue and describes some illustrative simulation results.
Data transmission with optical fiber is vulnerable to eavesdropping. Moreover, conventional key distribution technology suffers from increasing computational power and upgraded attack algorithms. To address these issues, quantum key distribution (QKD), a quantum technology that secures secret information (such as a cryptographic key) exchange between two parties, can be used to guarantee secure data transmission. Integrating QKD into existing wavelength division multiplexing optical networks has been verified through a series of experiments, which contribute to ensuring network security and saving fiber resources. This paper addresses the resource assignment problem in QKD-enabled optical networks. First, a QKD-enabled optical network architecture is introduced. A small fraction of wavelength channels are segmented into multiple time slots with optical time division multiplexing technology to construct quantum key channels (QKChs) and measuring-basis channels, and then the remaining wavelengths can construct traditional data channels. Second, a static routing, wavelength, and time-slot assignment (RWTA) strategy is proposed and verified by the integer linear programming formulation and a heuristic algorithm. In the RWTA, QKChs are assigned for service requests according to the security levels specified by relevant key-updating periods. Thus, the secret keys for data encryption can update periodically to enhance security. Simulation results indicate that there is a trade-off between security (i.e., security levels and security-level types) and resource utilization.
Optical network security is attracting increasing research interest. Currently, software-defined optical network (SDON) has been proposed to increase network intelligence (e.g., flexibility and programmability) which is gradually moving toward industrialization. However, a variety of new threats are emerging in SDONs. Data encryption is an effective way to secure communications in SDONs. However, classical key distribution methods based on the mathematical complexity will suffer from increasing computational power and attack algorithms in the near future. Noticeably, quantum key distribution (QKD) is now being considered as a secure mechanism to provision information-theoretically secure secret keys for data encryption, which is a potential technique to protect communications from security attacks in SDONs. This chapter introduces the basic principles and enabling technologies of QKD. Based on the QKD enabling technologies, an architecture of QKD over SDONs is presented. Resource allocation problem is elaborated in detail and is classified into wavelength allocation, time-slot allocation, and secret key allocation problems in QKD over SDONs. Some open issues and challenges such as survivability, cost optimization, and key on demand (KoD) for QKD over SDONs are discussed.
Optical network security is attracting increasing research attention, as loss of confidentiality of data transferred through an optical network could impact a huge number of users and services. Data encryption is an effective way to enhance optical network security. In particular, QKD is being investigated as a secure mechanism to provide keys for data encryption at the endpoints of an optical network. In a QKD-enabled optical network, apart from TDChs, two additional channels, called QSChs and PIChs, are required to support secure key synchronization. How to allocate network resources to QSChs, PIChs, and TDChs is emerging as a novel problem for the design of a security-guaranteed optical network. This article addresses the resource allocation problem in optical networks secured by QKD. We first discuss a possible architecture for a QKD-enabled optical network, where an SDN controller is in charge of allocating the three types of channels (TDCh, QSCh, and PICh) over different wavelengths exploiting WDM. To save wavelength resources, we propose to adopt OTDM to allocate multiple QSChs and PIChs over the same wavelength. An RWTA algorithm is designed to allocate wavelength and time slot resources for the three types of channels. Different security levels are included in the RWTA algorithm by considering different key updating periods (i.e., the period after which the secure key between two endpoints has to be updated). Illustrative simulation results show the effects of different security-level configuration schemes on resource allocation.
Currently, with the continuous advancement of network and communication technology, the amount of data carried by the optical network is very huge. The security of high-speed and large-capacity information in optical networks has attracted more and more attention. Quantum key distribution (QKD) provides information-theoretic security based on the laws of quantum mechanics. Introducing QKD into an optical network can greatly improve the security of the optical network. In order to reduce the cost of deployment on QKD infrastructure, quantum signals in QKD and classical signals in optical networks are multiplexed in the same fiber by wavelength-division manner. Moreover, due to the limited wavelength resources in an optical fiber, time-division technology is adopted to construct different kinds of channels in QKD system for efficient utilization of wavelength resources. Under such situation, how to satisfy the security requirements of service requests and complete the efficient scheduling of multi-dimensional resources, i.e., wavelengths and timeslots, is a challenging problem. This paper addresses this problem by considering multi-dimensional routing, wavelength, and timeslot allocation (RWTA) in short-distance quantum key distribution optical networks (QKD-ON), in which any two nodes can directly establish a quantum channel, and the maximum distance between any two nodes is less than the distance that can carry out point-to-point quantum key distribution process. While accommodating services with security requirements in QKD optical networks, to avoid the wavelength time-slot fragmentation caused by the constraints of wavelength consistency and time-slot continuity, we propose a time-window-based security orchestration strategy as well as relative-loss of time continuous compactness based RWTA strategy. We conducted the simulations under various scenarios, e.g., different key updating periods and different distributions on wavelength resources, etc., and the results show that the proposed strategy can achieve better performance compared with the baselines in terms of key success rate, key-updating delay, and blocking probability.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) has potential of providing long-term security as it is based on the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics. Security of information transmitted through optical networks has attracted attention recently due to its vulnerability to attacks post quantum computers. Hence, the integration of QKD into optical networks can significantly improve the security of existing and future optical networks. In QKD-secured optical networks, the quantum channel and the classical channel are integrated into a single optical fiber to reduce the deployment cost of the network infrastructure. However, due to limited network resources in a single optical fiber, the efficient provisioning of network resources (wavelengths and time slots) and blocking are two major issues in such networks. In this work, a resource assignment strategy with scheduling, namely, resource assignment with scheduling (RA-WS) has been proposed for utilization of network resources efficiently. In the RA-WS strategy, the QKD lightpath requests (QLPRs) have been served according to the proposed scheduling criterion. Moreover, the proposed scheduling criterion for routing, wavelength and time-slot assignment (RWTA) can reduce the effect of QLPRs blocking because of the limited network resources. The performance of the proposed RA-WS strategy has been analyzed in terms of blocking probability (BP), success probability of update secret key (SPUSK), and time-slot utilization ratio (TSUR) with different reserved wavelengths for quantum signal channel (QSCh), i.e.,WQand different time slots (ntr). Simulations performed on NSFNET network topology indicate that the RA-WS strategy performs better than the baseline strategy, i.e., resource assignment without scheduling (RA-WOS) in terms of all the considered metrics.