Optimized Parallel Transmission in Elastic Optical Networks to Support High-Speed Ethernet

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel parallel transmission framework for elastic optical networks supporting high-speed Ethernet, utilizing OFDM and optimization techniques to enhance spectral efficiency and meet future capacity demands.

Contribution

It proposes a new framework and optimization model for parallel transmission in elastic optical networks, addressing spectrum fragmentation and delay constraints, with a heuristic for practical implementation.

Findings

The framework effectively supports high-speed Ethernet in elastic optical networks.

The heuristic algorithm performs well when the optimization model is intractable.

Numerical results confirm the suitability of elastic optical networks for parallel high-speed Ethernet.

Abstract

The need for optical parallelization is driven by the imminent optical capacity crunch, where the spectral efficiency required in the coming decades will be beyond the Shannon limit. To this end, the emerging high-speed Ethernet services at 100 Gbps, have already standardized options to utilize parallel optics to parallelize interfaces referred to as Multi-lane Distribution (MLD). OFDM-based optical network is a promising transmission option towards the goal of Ethernet parallelization. It can allocate optical resource tailored for a variety of bandwidth requirements and that in a fundamentally parallel fashion with each sub-carrier utilizing a frequency slot at a lower rate than if serial transmission was used. In this paper, we propose a novel parallel transmission framework designed for elastic (OFDM-based) optical networks to support high-speed Ethernet services, in-line with IEEE and ITU-T standards. We formulate an ILP optimization model based on integer linear programming, with consideration of various constraints, including spectrum fragmentation, differential delay and guard-band constraints. We also propose a heuristic algorithm which can be applied when the optimization model becomes intractable. The numerical results show the effectiveness and high suitability of elastic optical networks to support parallel transmission in high-speed Ethernet. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to investigate the parallel transmission in elastic optical networks to support standardized high-speed Ethernet.