Dynamic Routing and Spectrum Assignment based on the Availability of Consecutive Sub-channels in Flexi-grid Optical Networks

TL;DR

This paper proposes an improved routing and spectrum assignment algorithm for flexible grid optical networks that reduces spectrum fragmentation and blocking probability by using adaptive parameters.

Contribution

It introduces a novel RSA algorithm that adapts to network conditions, effectively minimizing fragmentation and blocking in dynamic elastic optical networks.

Findings

The proposed RSA algorithm reduces spectrum fragmentation.

It lowers blocking probability compared to existing algorithms.

Adaptive parameters improve network utilization.

Abstract

Using Optical Orthogonal Frequency Multiplexing (O-OFDM), variable bandwidth channels can be created in Elastic Optical Networks (EON). This allows the use of spectrum more efficiently by allocating integral multiple of basic bandwidth slots to the lightpath requests. Consequently, such networks are also called flexible grid optical networks. It also adds a constraint of keeping all the allocated slots together when deciding the routes for the requests. This constraint called the contiguity constraint makes the routing and spectrum algorithms more challenging. In any network, the lightpath requests will arrive and depart dynamically and will invariably lead to spectrum fragmentation, and hence network will have a reduction in maximum possible utilization due to increased blocking probability. In this paper, we have presented an improvised RSA algorithm that leads to lesser fragmentation. It is evident from the results that the presented RSA algorithm uses adaptive parameters to reduce the blocking probability and fragmentation compared to other algorithms reported in the recent past.