Cao Yuan, Zhao Yongli, Lin Rui, Yu Xiaosong, Zhang Jie, Chen Jiajia
Opt Express. 2019 Feb 4;27(3):2544-2561. doi: 10.1364/OE.27.002544.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) networks are promising to progress towards widespread practical deployment over existing fiber infrastructures in the near future. Given the high cost and difficulty of deploying QKD networks, multi-tenancy becomes promising to improve cost efficiency for future QKD networks. In a multi-tenant QKD network, multiple QKD tenants can share the same QKD network infrastructure to obtain secret keys for securing their data transfer. Since the secret-key resources are finite and precious in QKD networks, how to achieve efficient multi-tenant secret-key assignment (MTKA) to satisfy the secret-key demands of multiple QKD tenants over QKD networks becomes a significant problem. In this regard, this study addresses the MTKA problem over QKD networks. A new multi-tenant QKD network architecture is proposed based on software defined networking (SDN) and quantum key pool (QKP) techniques. A secret-key rate sharing scheme is presented and a heuristic algorithm is designed to implement efficient MTKA over QKD networks. A new performance metric, namely matching degree (MD) that reflects the balance between QKD network secret-key resources and QKD tenant requests, is defined and evaluated. Simulation studies indicate that high QKD tenant requests accommodation and efficient secret-key resource usage can be achieved via maximizing the value of MD.
量子密钥分发（QKD）网络有望在不久的将来在现有光纤基础设施上朝着广泛的实际部署方向发展。鉴于部署QKD网络的高成本和困难，多租户有望提高未来QKD网络的成本效率。在多租户QKD网络中，多个QKD租户可以共享相同的QKD网络基础设施，以获取用于保护其数据传输的密钥。由于密钥资源在QKD网络中是有限且宝贵的，如何在QKD网络上实现高效的多租户密钥分配（MTKA）以满足多个QKD租户的密钥需求成为一个重要问题。在这方面，本研究解决了QKD网络上的MTKA问题。提出了一种基于软件定义网络（SDN）和量子密钥池（QKP）技术的新型多租户QKD网络架构。提出了一种密钥率共享方案，并设计了一种启发式算法以在QKD网络上实现高效的MTKA。定义并评估了一种新的性能指标，即匹配度（MD），它反映了QKD网络密钥资源与QKD租户请求之间的平衡。仿真研究表明，通过最大化MD的值可以实现对QKD租户请求的高容纳度和密钥资源的高效使用。
