  In accommodating the continued explosive growth in Internet traffic, optical
core networks have been evolving accordingly thanks to numerous technological
and architectural innovations. From an architectural perspective, the adoption
of optical-bypass networking in the last two decades has resulted in
substantial cost savings, owning to the elimination of massive
optical-electrical optical interfaces. In optical-bypass framework, the basic
functions of optical nodes include adding (dropping) and cross-connecting
transitional lightpaths. Moreover, in the process of cross-connecting
transiting lightpaths through an intermediate node, these lightpaths must be
separated from each other in either time, frequency or spatial domain, to avoid
unwanted interference which deems to deteriorate the signal qualities. In light
of recently enormous advances in photonic signal processing / computing
technologies enabling the precisely controlled interference of optical channels
for various computing functions, we propose a new architectural paradigm for
future optical networks, namely, optical-computing-enabled networks. Our
proposal is defined by the added capability of optical nodes permitting the
superposition of transitional lightpaths for computing purposes to achieve
greater capacity efficiency. Specifically, we present two illustrative examples
highlighting the potential benefits of bringing about in-network optical
computing functions which are relied on optical aggregation and optical XOR
gate. The new optical computing capabilities armed at optical nodes therefore
call for a radical change in formulating networking problems and designing
accompanying algorithms, which are collectively referred to as optical network
design and planning 2.0 so that the capital and operational efficiency could be
fully unlocked.
