The issues of scalability and class of service have been among the most important research focuses in design of the control plane for wavelength-routed WDM networks. In this article we introduce a framework for achieving a scalable design in metropolitan area networks with WDM as the core technology (called optical metropolitan networks). The framework is summarized with the topics of survivability, scalability, and class of service. A novel design concept, called interarrival planning, which aims to achieve scalable control and management in optical metropolitan networks, will be addressed.