Hybrid optical and packet switching networks enable data to be forwarded at multiple levels. Large IP flows at the IP level may be therefore moved to the optical level bypassing the per hop routing decisions of the IP level. Such move could be beneficial since congested IP networks could be offloaded; leaving more resources for other smaller IP flows. At the same time, the flows switched at the optical level would experience better quality of service (QoS) thanks to larger bandwidth and negligible jitter. Moving these large flows to the optical level requires the creation of lightpaths. Current approaches to manage lightpaths rely on decisions of which IP flows will be moved to lightpaths taken by network managers. As a result, only IP flows explicitly selected by such managers will take advantage of being transferred over lightpaths. However, it may be that there are also other large IP flows, not known to the manager, which could potentially profit from being moved to the optical level. The objective of this Ph.D. thesis is to investigate the feasibility of employing self- management capabilities on hybrid optical and packet switching networks in order to autonomically move large IP flows from the IP level to the optical level, as well as, creating and releasing lightpaths to transport such flows at the optical level.
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