Patent ID: 7817919

Claim:
A method for transmission of data packets via an optical burst switching network with a plurality of nodes, wherein the network nodes of the optical burst switching network are connected to each other by optical fibers, and wherein a wavelength division multiplexing method is used, comprising the steps of: aggregating data packets into a burst; assigning a header to the burst; providing a loop-free optical wavelength division multiplex channel as a common control channel for a transmission of headers in the optical burst switching network, wherein all network nodes have access to the control channel; transmitting the header via the common control channel to the network nodes, receiving the header via the common control channel by the network node and forwarding the header directly to a further network node; opto-electrically converting the header received by the network node and forwarding the opto-electrically converted header to a controller; and virtually parallel processing the opto-electrically converted header in controllers of the network nodes.