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Journal of Lightwave Technology

Key-Size-Driven Wavelength Resource Sharing Scheme for QKD and the Time-Varying Data Services

Jianing Niu, Yongmei Sun, Xianglong Jia, Yuefeng Ji

Published Feb 3, 2021• 16 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Integrating quantum key distribution (QKD) into the optical network through wavelength division multiplex (WDM) is promising for establishing large-scale QKD networks. However, the existing wavelength assignment schemes for WDM-QKD network all require to reserve a dedicate waveband for quantum signals, which influences the provisioning of data services, especially when the resource is tight. In this article, considering the quantum key pool (QKP) technology in the current QKD network, we propose a flexible key-size-driven wavelength assignment (KSD-WA) scheme to recycle the wavelength fragment to transmit quantum signals. Additionally, considering the noise impacts and the limited reconfiguration operations, we propose a heuristic algorithm to optimize the fragment selection with the objective of maximizing the secure key rate in the dynamic scenario. We also design a deep reinforcement learning (DeepRL) based algorithm to automatically learn the optimization policy under different environments. The simulation results verify that comparing with the conventional fixed-band (FB) scheme, the KSD-WA scheme assisted by the proposed optimization algorithms can provide adequate keys for encryption without affecting the provisioning of coexisting data services, which improves the compatibility of QKD with the real-life optical networks.

DOI
10.1109/jlt.2021.3056109

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Integrating quantum key distribution (QKD) into the optical network through wavelength division multiplex (WDM) is promising for establishing large-scale QKD networks. However, the existing wavelength assignment schemes for WDM-QKD network all require to reserve a dedicate waveband for quantum signals, which influences the provisioning of data services, especially when the resource is tight. In this article, considering the quantum key pool (QKP) technology in the current QKD network, we propose a flexible key-size-driven wavelength assignment (KSD-WA) scheme to recycle the wavelength fragment to transmit quantum signals. Additionally, considering the noise impacts and the limited reconfiguration operations, we propose a heuristic algorithm to optimize the fragment selection with the objective of maximizing the secure key rate in the dynamic scenario. We also design a deep reinforcement learning (DeepRL) based algorithm to automatically learn the optimization policy under different environments. The simulation results verify that comparing with the conventional fixed-band (FB) scheme, the KSD-WA scheme assisted by the proposed optimization algorithms can provide adequate keys for encryption without affecting the provisioning of coexisting data services, which improves the compatibility of QKD with the real-life optical networks.
Optical network security has attracted extensive attentions recently, data encryption is an effective way to enhance the security. Unlike conventional key distribution methods, Quantum key distribution (QKD) is provably-secure. Integrating QKD into optical networks can provide a new paradigm for secure communications. In a QKD integrated optical network, besides the traditional data channels, two additional channels, called quantum-signal channels and public interaction channels, are required to support secure key. Crucially, how to optimally allocate limited wavelength resources to the three channels is emerging as a novel problem. By introducing wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) network and defining the wavelength occupancy factor, this paper designs a dynamic routing, wavelength and time-slot allocation (DRWTA) algorithm for the wavelength allocation in QKD integrated optical network. The simulation results show wavelength scale factor has an adverse effect on the resource utilization rate and the blocking probability. Furthermore, the DRWTA algorithm provides a strategy to allocate wavelength for three types of channels in QKD-WDM networks. The success probability can be improved by exploiting the DRWTA algorithm.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) networking over wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) network infrastructure provides a new paradigm for secure communications across the networks. With limited wavelength resources in existing WDM networks, how to efficiently schedule QKD to provision sufficient secret keys over WDM networks becomes a new challenge. This study proposes a new time-scheduled scheme in combination with quantum key pool (QKP) technique to overcome this challenge. A new architecture of QKD-over-WDM networks is presented, in which QKPs are constructed to decouple secret-key resources from the underlying infrastructure for timely secret-key provisioning. In the time-scheduled scheme, routing, wavelength, and time-slot allocation (RWTA) problem is proposed for efficient QKP construction (QKPC) over WDM networks, in which three sub-problems (i.e., secret-key consumption, time-slot allocation, and time-slot continuity) are discussed, respectively. An integer linear programming (ILP) model and a novel joint path-and-link-based RWTA (JPL-RWTA) heuristic algorithm are designed to solve the RWTA problem, in which the three sub-problems are addressed together. Simulation results indicate that the ILP model and JPL-RWTA algorithm are effective approaches to obtain the positive balance between resource utilization of QKPC and successful probability of QKPC (SPQKPC). Moreover, the SPQKPC can be increased at the cost of reducing the flexibility of secret-key consumption, the uniformity of time-slot allocation, and the proportion of time-slot continuous QKPC to time-slot discrete QKPC requests.
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.
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.