In this special issue devoted to the memory of Prof. Fabio Neri we would like to look back at the time of the international research projects where some of us collaborated with him. On the basis of our personal experience of the time and the current viewpoint, we will discuss why Optical Packet Switching (OPS) is a technology that never came to market in spite of the great amount of research that was devoted to it. Then we will explore how Elastic Optical Network came to the stage more recently, somewhat overcoming the OPS technical proposal both in the interest of the researchers as well as of the industry.

中文翻译：

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为什么光包交换失败了，弹性光网络能否取而代之？

在这个专门纪念法比奥·内里教授的特刊中，我们想回顾一下我们中的一些人与他合作的国际研究项目的时间。根据我们当时的个人经验和当前观点，我们将讨论为什么光分组交换 (OPS) 是一项尽管投入了大量研究却从未进入市场的技术。然后我们将探讨 Elastic Optical Network 最近是如何上台的，在某种程度上克服了 OPS 技术提案，既符合研究人员的利益，也符合行业的利益。