[TP-17] The 12th International Conference on Optical Internet Proceedings

Spectrum and Energy-Efficient Routing Algorithm

in Survivable and Elastic Optical Network
Yitong Yang, Weigang Hou, Lei Guo
College of Information Science and Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang, 110819, China
Correspondence to: (Weigang Hou) houweigang@ise.neu.edu.cn

Abstract—The elastic optical network can improve spectrum

utilization because it allocates an appropriate number of TABLE I. ENERGY CONSUMPTION
continuous and partially overlapped subcarriers according to Modulation Subcarrier Transmission Energy
each traffic demand. In this paper, we study path protection level capacity (TR) Reach (km) consumption
under an adaptive modulation with the consideration of BPSK 12.5 4000 112.374
spectrum defragmentation and energy consumption.
Keywords—energy saving; defragmentation; survivability; QPSK 25 2000 133.416
elastic optical networks 8-QAM 37.5 1000 154.457

16-AQM 50 500 175.498

I. INTRODUCTION
Traditional Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM)
optical network provides a rigid central frequency and utilizes a
single-line-rate transponder with a constant modulation level.
So WDM optical network has the poor resource utilization. By
using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM),
the Elastic Optical Network (EON) can utilize spectrum
efficiently according to the characteristics of transmission path
[1-2]. In EON, the spectrum is divided into a large amount of
subcarriers, and each lightpath occupies an appropriate number
of continuous and sub-overlapped subcarriers.
In EON, we will focus on the survivability against network
element failure (e.g., a fiber cut) that may result in a huge data
loss [3-5]. Most existing studies assume that the modulation
level is fixed. However, the superior performance of EON
cannot be fully utilized. Thus in this paper, we design path
protection algorithms for EON under an adaptive modulation
that dynamically selects an appropriate modulation level
according to transmission distance or trade-off between energy
consumption and spectral efficiency.
II. SYSTEM MODEL
In EON, the energy consumption (in Watts) of each BV-
transponder can be computed by Eq. 1, and it depends on
subcarrier capacity (TR in Gbit/s).
PC trans  1.683  TR  91.333 (1)
The energy consumption of the subcarrier under different
modulation levels is shown in Table. 1.
In this paper, we consider that the size of each frequency
slot is 12.5GHz; each guard band occupies two frequency slots;
each traffic demand requires a group of subcarriers, each with
a set of frequency slots. So a traffic demand d can be
represented as  od ,td , nd  , where od is the source node, td is the
destination node, and nd is the number of continuous
frequency slots required by d.
32-QAM 62.5 250 196.539
64-QAM 75 125 217.581
III. OUR FRAMEWORK
A. Dedicated path protection
In dedicated path protection, we reserve continuous
subcarriers dedicated to protect working lightpaths. As an
example of Fig. 2, we have an 8-node and 10-link physical
topology where the number besides each fiber link denotes the
link index. Each fiber link has its own length. As shown in Fig.
2(a), when the first traffic demand d 1  1, 3, 4  arrives, the
working lightpath P11 is nodes : 1  2  3 (the corresponding
path length is 100km). The link-disjoint backup lightpath P12
is 1  8  7  6 , and the corresponding path length is 200km.
The spectrum allocation is shown in Fig. 2(b). Both P11 and
P12 consume four continuous frequency slots.
B. Optimal modulation level determination
If we adopt only BPSK, each subcarrier has one frequency
slot and the energy consumption of each subcarrier is 112.374
Watt as shown in Table I. Thus for d1  1, 3, 4  , the total
energy of BV-transponders consumed by both working and
backup lightpaths is ( 2  4  112.5  900 ) Watt. However, if we
select the acceptable highest modulation level according to
transmission distance, the energy consumption will reduce. As
shown in Table I, we select 64-QAM for P11 , because the
transmission reach of 64-QAM is 125km that is larger than the
length of P11 . Correspondingly, the energy consumption of
BV-transponders consumed by P11 is 271.5 Watt. This is
because that the subcarrier capacity under 64-QAM is changed
into 75GHz, and then only one subcarrier is enough for d1 .
Similarly, we select 32-QAM for P12 and the energy
consumption of BV-transponders consumed by P12 is 196.5

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[TP-17] The 12th International Conference on Optical Internet Proceedings

Watt. The total energy consumption of BV-transponders is
reduced from 900 Watt to (196.5  217.5  414 ) Watt.
Combining dedicated/shared path protection with adaptive
modulation above, we design Routing and Modulation
Survivable Spectrum Allocation (RMSSA) algorithm. However,
the drawback of RMSSA is that the spectrum utilization
level. SERMSSA with n  0 (where n is the number of
acceptable extra fragments) has the highest energy efficiency.
As shown in Fig. 4, RMSSA generates more extra fragments
compared with SERMSSA.
RMSSA

Energy Consumption(kw)
135
125
becomes serious. 115
SERMSS
105 A(n=0)
As mentioned above, P11 adapts 64-QAM modulation 95 SERMSS
level and needs one 75GHz subcarrier. However, d1 only 85 A(n=1)
SERMSS
75
needs four frequency slots, i.e., 50GHz. As a result, 25GHz 65 A(n=2)
55 SERMSS
spectrum becomes an extra fragment. Similarly, P12 generates 45 A(n=3)
35
one frequency slot fragment. So we propose Spectrum SERMSS
2 4 6 8 101214 16182022 24262830 A(n=4)
Efficient RMSSA (SERMSSA) algorithm. SERMSSA selects RSA
Scaaled Triffic Matrix
an appropriate modulation level for the improvement of
RMSSA. Fig. 3 Energy consumption
In SERMSSA, we select 16-QAM for P11 . This is because
RMSSA
that, we have 16-QAM, QPSK and BPSK modulation levels, 200

each does not result in any extra fragment, to choose. SERMSSA

Extra Fragments
150
(n=0)
Meanwhile, 16-QAM is the highest modulation level among SERMSSA
100
them. So P11 consumes one 50GHz subcarrier and the energy (n=1)
consumption of BV-transponders consumed by P11 is 175 50 SERMSSA
(n=2)
Watt. Similarly, we select 16-QAM for P12 , and the 0 SERMSSA
corresponding energy consumption of BV-transponders is also 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 (n=3)
SERMSSA
175 Watt. Obviously, SERMSSA is more energy efficient Scaled Traffic Matrix (n=4)
compared with RMSSA, and no extra fragment occurs. When
the second demand d 2  1, 4, 2  and the third demand Fig. 4 Extra fragments
d 3  3, 5, 3  arrive in order, we allocate frequency solts for
their working lightpaths P21 , P31 and their backup lightpaths V. CONCLUSION
P22 , P32 , as shown in Fig. 2(b). In this paper, we have explored path protection in EON.
We dynamically select the modulation level to be determined
by transmission distance or trade-off between energy
consumption and spectral efficiency. Simulation results have
demonstrated the effectiveness of our heuristics.

Fig. 2 An illustration of our framework
C. Shared path protection
In order to further improve spectral efficiency, we utilize
shared path protection. We consider that only one link failure
at a particular time. If working lightpaths are link disjoint,
corresponding backup lightpaths can share the spectrum of
their same fiber link. As shown in Fig. 2(a), because working
lightpaths P11 and P31 are link disjoint, backup lightpaths P22
and P32 can share the same three frequency slots on the fiber
link 10. In other words, we save three frequency slots
previously reserved by P32 .
IV. NUMERICAL RESULTS
The performances of energy consumption and spectrum
fragmentation are tested for RSA (benchmark), RMSSA, and
SERMSSA on NSFNET. The traffic demand varies from 1 to
12 frequency slots. As shown in Fig. 3, RSA has the most
energy consumption, because it utilizes a constant modulation
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported in part by the Fundamental
Research Funds for the Central Universities (N130817002,
N130404002, N110204001) and the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (61172051, 61302070, 61302072).
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