Optical power control to efficiently handle flex-grid spectrum gain over existing fixed-grid network infrastructures

Abstract

The exponential traffic growth in optical networks has triggered the evolution from Fixed-Grid to Flex-Grid technology. This evolution allows better spectral efficiency and spectrum usage over current networks in order to facilitate dynamic and huge traffic demands. The integration of Flex-Grid technology increases the number of optical channels established over optical links, leading, however, to an increase in amplification power and possibly saturating optical amplifiers. In this work, we propose a power adaptation process that takes advantage of link optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) margins to allow network operators to support this power increase while maintaining the use of legacy amplifiers. Results show that controlling channel optical power benefits from the Flex-Grid in terms of spectrum and capacity gain using in-place amplifier infrastructure.

Optical Power Control in GMPLS Control Plane

“…This work extends a previous study presented in [17] by introducing protocol extensions and describing signaling message details and the mechanisms used to integrate these extensions in a distributed GMPLS control plane. Moreover, we produce additional performance evaluations (for instance, the effect of the number of shortest paths) and enrich our previous work with a deeper analysis of the blocking reasons for six simulated scenarios.…”

“…Our link design method developed in [17] [4], is based on an analytical formula that calculates amplifier gains while respecting optimal powers to be set at the input of optical spans, thus leading to link OSNR optimization. After this link design phase (or any other design phase), every link has its own set of amplifier types with various power and gain settings, which subsequently determines the power resource limits and the quality parameter of the link (i.e., OSNR).…”

Optical Power Control in Translucent Flexible Optical Networks With GMPLS Control Plane

“…The simulator was extended by adding the newly proposed OSPF-TE and RSVP-TE protocol extensions in Section VI. The new routing algorithm and the signaling mechanism are implemented as explained in Section VI-C and V. Moreover, the simulator takes as input a network topology (links, spans, and amplifier types) and it designs its optical links using our design method presented in [25]. Finally, it fills in the OSPF-TE database the essential needed parameters (link spectrum bitmap, P opt channel,l , P design,l , P margin,l , OSN R l , P l (t), regenerator availability bitmap, RB set field).…”

Power-Aware Regeneration Algorithm in Flex-grid Networks

“…However, this capacity increase may not be sustainable, because of the associated increase in optical amplification power 1 . In fact, the increasing number of optical channels gives rise to a power saturation problem in legacy amplifiers when migrating from fixed-grid to flex-grid networks 2,3 .We demonstrated in 2,3 that avoiding saturation problem is possible through adapting channels optical power. This adaptation is possible by converting the OSNR margins (OSN R margin ) into optical power attenuation over optical links 1,4 .…”

“…However, this capacity increase may not be sustainable, because of the associated increase in optical amplification power 1 . In fact, the increasing number of optical channels gives rise to a power saturation problem in legacy amplifiers when migrating from fixed-grid to flex-grid networks 2,3 .…”