by Andy Sun (achoenix@gmail.com)
Last update: 2026-05-08
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Optical Circuit Switch
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Introduction
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Lower power consumption
- Improved network flexibility and system availability
- Lower latency relative to packet switches
- Data rate / signal type agnostic
Cons
- Deploying OCS needs a new control plane
- Different physical deployment requirements than packet switches
- Currently vendor-specific (APIs, management tools, physical architectures)
Standards
OCP-OCS
Networking - Optical Circuit Switching Sub-Project