US Patent 7349630 Hybrid WDM/TDM network architecture

A method and apparatus for configuring a server/client network architecture. A server network device impresses an optical signal onto an optical link at a specified wavelength, where distinct wavelengths are associated with one or more of a plurality of client devices. Thus, the server addresses a specified client device, thereby polling the specified device for a response. An optical demultiplexer/combiner directs the server optical signal to the specified recipient client device on the basis of the wavelength of the server optical signal, and combines all responses on the client devices for transmission back to the server. Any transmission by the specified client device in response to polling by the server is thus received by the server.