Core Networks in the Flexgrid Era

Abstract

This paper reviews the status of research into elastic optical networks and flexgrid, illustrating the benefits of new flexible technologies to allow higher network capacities and support superchannel flows. The paper assesses the potential for the various forms of elasticity and describes open questions of a currently active research area. Index Terms-Networks and optical communications.

Non-linear impairment modeling for flexgrid network and its application in offline network equipment upgrade strategy

“…Therefore a lower modulation lightpath will have more scope of improving its own capacity and consequently will have higher impact on improving the network capacity. Table II is taken from [6] which is valid for baud rate of 27.75 GBaud. In case of BPSK 2 subcarriers forming one 100G superchannel is used.…”

Performance Comparison of Dynamic Elastic Optical Networks with Optical Regeneration

“…Recently, elastic optical network (EON) utilizing a flexible frequency grid has been proposed as a promising candidate for future ultra-high capacity optical networks [6,7]. Elastic optical networking technology helps greatly improve the spectral efficiency and flexibility of the network by eliminating stranded spectrum between channels, supporting both sub-channel and super-channel traffic, and therefore allowing flexible bandwidth connections of multiple data rates and modulation formats [6][7][8]. However, EON is currently facing challenges owing to the lack of architectures and technologies to efficiently support bursty traffic on flexible spectrum.…”

“…Elastic optical networks are able to allocate spectrum resources flexibly for handling not only legacy low-bitrate services but also new super-channel services [6]. Although elastic optical networks are also capable of provisioning dynamic bandwidth-flexible and spectrum-efficient end-toend optical paths while enable an economical scalability of networks adapting to the growing trend and the heterogeneity of bandwidth requirements for Telcos/Internet service providers [7,8], more sophisticated network design and provision control strategies are required for realizing efficient and robust network operations [7]. As a result, routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) problem of elastic optical networks becomes more complicated and is known as routing and spectrum assignment problem which includes three sub-problems that are routing, modulation format assignment and spectrum allocation [7][8][9].…”

Spectrum Utilization Efficiency of Elastic Optical Networks Utilizing Coarse Granular Routing

“…The first approach which aims to enhance the spectrum utilization and the network flexibility is currently dominated by the development of elastic optical networking technology [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Elastic optical networks (EON) realize spectrum-and energy-efficient optical transport infrastructure by exploiting bitrate-adaptive spectrum resource allocation with flexible spectrum/frequency grid and distance-adaptive modulation [8,9].…”

“…Elastic optical networks (EON) realize spectrum-and energy-efficient optical transport infrastructure by exploiting bitrate-adaptive spectrum resource allocation with flexible spectrum/frequency grid and distance-adaptive modulation [8,9]. They are also capable of providing dynamic spectrum-effective and bandwidth-flexible end-to-end lightpath connections while offering Telcos (IT/communication service providers) the ability to scale their networks economically with the traffic growth and the heterogeneity of bandwidth requirement [10,11]. However, EON is still facing challenges owing to the lack of architectures and technologies to efficiently support bursty traffic on flexible spectrum.…”