Patent ID: 8014671

Claim:
An optical communication system for use in communicating data between a plurality of nodes using wavelength division multiplexing, the communication system comprising: an optical backbone to provide an optical pathway between the plurality of nodes, wherein the optical backbone is a bidirectional optical backbone; and a plurality of network interface units, each network interface unit associated with a corresponding node of the plurality of nodes, wherein each network interface unit comprises: an arbitration optical transmitter operable to transmit arbitration information on the optical pathway at an arbitration wavelength during an arbitration cycle representative of at least a request to write data to or read data from another node of the plurality of nodes, wherein the arbitration information is bidirectionally transmitted onto the optical pathway from the network interface unit; an arbitration optical receiver tuned to the arbitration wavelength to receive transmitted arbitration information from the optical pathway during an arbitration cycle from one or more of the plurality of nodes, wherein transmitted arbitration information is received bidirectionally by the network interface unit from the optical pathway; a data optical transmitter tunable to a plurality of wavelengths for use in transmitting data on the optical pathway to another node of the plurality of nodes, the plurality of wavelengths being different than the arbitration wavelength, wherein the data is bidirectionally transmitted onto the optical pathway from the network interface unit; a data optical receiver tunable to one of the plurality of wavelengths for use in receiving data from the optical pathway, wherein data is received bidirectionally by the network interface unit from the optical pathway; and an arbitration selection apparatus operable to analyze the transmitted arbitration information of an arbitration cycle from a plurality of nodes, select a wavelength of the plurality of wavelengths at which to transmit data to another node during a data cycle based on the transmitted arbitration information of the arbitration cycle, and change the wavelength to another wavelength of the plurality of wavelengths at which to transmit data to another node during another data cycle based on transmitted arbitration information of another arbitration cycle.