Application of evolutionary algorithms to DWDM optical networks design

Elastic optical network (EON) is a promising candidate for the next generation optical transport network because of its high spectrum efficiency and flexible spectrum allocation. However, to migrate from today’s dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) network to EON, optical nodes such as reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs) should be replaced with the ones with expensive flexi-grid wavelength selective switches (WSSs). Thus, whether and how today’s optical network will be evolved to EON is still under debate. Meanwhile, with the technical maturity of optical super-channels that transmit bit rates at the level of 1 Tb/s, super-channels are expected to dominate the future optical transport network because of their attractiveness of high spectrum efficiency and superior cost effectiveness. In this paper, we propose a new quasi-coarse wavelength division multiplexing (Quasi-CWDM) optical network architecture that is compatible to today’s WDM network in spectrum operation, while still maintaining the flexibility of adaptation between the bit rate and the transparent reach of an optical super-channel, but not requiring expensive flexi-grid WSSs. Specifically, the Quasi-CWDM optical network employs large fixed frequency grids, whose spacing falls between the traditional CWDM and DWDM, e.g., 200 GHz or 400 GHz. To maintain the flexibility between the bit rate and the transparent reach of an optical super-channel, different modulation formats are chosen according to channel physical distances. To minimize network hardware cost and maximize carried user traffic demand, we develop a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model and a heuristic algorithm that can efficiently groom upper-layer IP traffic onto the optical layer by optical super-channels. We compare the design based on the Quasi-CWDM network to those based on the DWDM network and the advanced EON. It is found that the proposed Quasi-CWDM network has a much lower hardware cost than the other two types of networks, while achieving spectrum efficiency close to EON.

The cost of an optical network in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks can be reduced using optical reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs), which allow traffic to pass through without the need for an expensive optical-electro-optical (O-E-O) conversion. Waveband switching (WBS) is another technique to reduce the network cost by grouping consecutive wavelengths and switching them together using a single port per waveband. WBS has attracted the attention of researchers for its efficiency in reducing switching complexity and therefore cost in WDM optical networks. In this paper, we consider the problem of switching wavelengths as non-overlapping uniform wavebands, per link, for mesh networks using the minimum number of wavebands. Given a fixed band size b s , we give integer linear programming formulations and present a heuristic solution to minimize the number of ROADMs (number of wavebands) in mesh networks that support a given traffic pattern. We show that the number of ROADMs (or number of ports in band-switching cross-connects) can be reduced significantly in mesh networks with WBS compared to wavelength switching using either the ILP or the heuristic algorithm. We also examine the performance of our band assignment algorithms under dynamic traffic.

Mobile network operators are facing ever-increasing traffic demands because of the numerous data-hungry applications used by subscribers nowadays. As a result, technologies that support high bandwidth and network availability have become essential. One such technology is dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM). This study investigated the evolution of an optical add/drop multiplexer (OADM), which is one of the key components of DWDM technology. The goal of this research was to investigate how the evolution of an OADM has contributed to network survivability and bandwidth enhancement in DWDM optical networks. A thorough search of the literature on an OADM was undertaken using data sources like Google Scholar, Elsevier, ResearchGate, ScienceDirect, Springer, and DWDM vendor manuals. The study found that in order to address present and future DWDM optical network demands, a reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) deployed over flexgrid spectrum is essential. The most advanced iteration of a ROADM supports colorless, directionless, contentionless, and flex-grid functionalities, resulting in the most robust, flexible, and future-proof DWDM optical network. The study further found that flex-grid technology supports uplinks with high line rates and has superior spectral efficiency.

The widespread deployment of wireless telecommunication networks and growing Internet traffic globally leads to a substantial increase in signal traffic demands in fiber optic networks. This demand surge places significant pressure on the survivability of optical networks, specifically when faced with fiber cable failures that prevent failed optical fibers from satisfying connection requests. To address this challenge, in this paper, we consider integrated planning of regenerator installation, optical connection routing, and wavelength assignment (RWA) for wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical networks under link failures. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to consider such an integrated problem. We minimize the number of backup regenerators required to fulfill all connection requests under all potential link failures while accounting for the wavelength and routing constraints. We formulate the problem as an integer program, while its size exponentially increases with the network size by nature. To solve large-scale instances for practical uses in the industry, we propose efficient algorithms to generate near-optimal solutions that are practically implementable. We perform extensive numerical experiments to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in solving real-world instances provided by our industry partners. The results show that our approach can efficiently obtain high-quality solutions while ensuring a minimal increase in backup regenerators as the network grows. Our solutions also offer valuable insights into planning a cost-effective and reliable fiber optic network for network operators.

We study the problem of providing real-time service to hard and soft real-time messages in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical networks. We propose and evaluate a set of scheduling algorithms which schedule message transmissions in single-hop WDM passive star networks based on specific time constraints. We compare the performances of our algorithms with that of the typical WDM scheduling algorithm which does not consider the time constraint of the transmitted messages by discrete-event simulations and an analytical model. We find that the improvement on real-time performance can be attributed to our scheduling algorithms where the time constraint of messages has been taken into consideration. This study suggests that when scheduling real-time messages in WDM networks, one has to consider not only the problem of resources allocation in the network but also the problem of sequencing messages based on their time constraints.

To utilize the wavelength resources of Internet protocol (IP) over wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical networks, a multi-constrained multicast traffic grooming algorithm is proposed in this paper. This algorithm can achieve multicast traffic grooming in IP over WDM optical networks under multi-constraints, including the number of optical transceivers, wavelength conversion capability and wavelength splitting capability. We simulated the traffic grooming algorithm using the topology of GEANT. Emulation results show that our algorithm has a lower blocking proportion compared with the multi-hop traffic grooming algorithm, which can achieve multicast traffic grooming more effectively.

The Fiber Installation Problem (FIP) in Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) optical networks consists in routing a set of lightpaths (all-optical connections) such that the cost of the optical devices necessary to operate the network is minimized. Each of these devices is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. In consequence, any improvement in the lightpath routing may save millions of dollars for the network operator. All the works in the literature for solving this problem are based on greedy heuristics and genetic algorithms. No information is known on how good are the solutions provided by these heuristics compared to the optimal solution. Besides, no proof that the problem is NP-Hard can be found. In this paper, we prove that FIP is NP-Hard and also present an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) formulation for the problem. In addition, we propose an implementation of the Iterated Local Search (ILS) metaheuristic to solve large instances of the problem. Computational experiments carried out on 21 realistic instances showed that the CPLEX solver running with our ILP formulation was able to solve 11 out of the 21 instances to optimality in less than two minutes. These results also showed that the ILS heuristic has an average optimality gap of 1% on the instances for which the optimal solution is known. For the other instances, the results showed that the proposed heuristic outperforms the best heuristic in the literature by 7%.

Addresses the problem of efficient communication in unreliable multi-hop optical networks supported by wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). We first define a new cost model for routing in (optical) WDM networks that is more general and realistic than the existing models. Our model takes into consideration not only the cost of wavelength access and conversion but also the cost for wavelength switching when several optical channels of the same wavelength arrive at the same node. We then propose a set of efficient algorithms in both reliable and unreliable WDM networks on the new cost model respectively for each of three important communication patterns-multiple point-to-point routing, multicast and multiple multicast.

We address the issue of inapproximability of the wavelength assignment problem in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical networks. We prove that in an n-node WDM optical network with m lightpaths and maximum load L, if NP ≠ ZPP, for any constant δ>0, no polynomial time algorithm can achieve approximation ratio n1/2−δ or m1−δ, where NP is the class of problems which can be solved by nondeterministic polynomial time algorithms, and ZPP is the class of problems that can be solved by polynomial randomized algorithms with zero probability of error. Furthermore, the above result still holds even when L=2. We also prove that no algorithm can guarantee the number of wavelengths to be less than $$(\sqrt{n}/2)L$$ or (m/2)L. This is the first time inapproximability results are established for the wavelength assignment problem in WDM optical networks. We also notice the following fact, namely, there is a polynomial time algorithm for wavelength assignment which achieves approximation ratio of O(m(log log m)2/(log m)3). Therefore, the above lower bound of m1−δ is nearly tight.

In a many-to-many session, a participant distributes and receives traffic flows to/from all others in the same session. It is desirable to achieve both high resource utilization and low power consumption when such sessions are provisioned. In wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical networks, traffic grooming has been widely applied as the key technology for aggregating sessions to improve resource utilization. However, the current many-to-many grooming approaches, the lightpath circle and hubbed light-tree, do not make an effort to reduce the power consumption of many-to-many sessions. In this paper, we formulate the green routing and aggregation of many-to-many sessions problem and prove its NP-completeness. For problem solving in WDM optical networks, we apply a rational combined method of lightpaths. Both an integer linear programming-based approach and a novel graph-based heuristic are devised. We further provide an illustrative comparison between our heuristic and the existing benchmarks in terms of power consumption. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that, compared with the benchmarks, our heuristic improves the average power efficiency in the range of 13-19%.

Dynamic survivable mapping through reconfiguration in IP over WDM network

Dense wavelength division multiplexing optical networks transport a huge aggregate traffic exceeding Tbps per single fiber, and passive optical network technology has been extended to include the residential and enterprise network layer with fiber-to-the premises. Because this network allows for multimedia and extremely high data rates to end-users, optical communications security is important not only on the client and the node management layers, but also on the physical layer. Thus, cyber-security becomes also important in optical networks, including unbreakable cipher keys, cipher key distribution, identification of malicious actors, source authentication, physical link signature, and countermeasure strategies. In this paper we overview the security of the WDM optical network. We discuss advanced cryptographic methods that stem from quantum mechanics, known as quantum cryptography, and we identify specific vulnerabilities. We also look into the security of the next-generation optical network.

In all-optical Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technique, data contention is an inevitable challenge. For reliable data transmission, contention resolution is very much essential. There are different contention resolution techniques that are used in optical WDM network. In this paper, wavelength converter is used for contention resolution in optical WDM network. Here Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (SOA) is used to implement wavelength converter based on a special third-order nonlinear susceptibility phenomenon of silica fiber, called Four-Wave Mixing (FWM) technique. Realization of wavelength converter is done for two different sets of WDM networks. Performance of the wavelength converter was estimated in terms of number frequencies generated, number of new wavelength generated, its corresponding power, etc. Result shows that four-wave mixing is a very effective technique to generate new wavelengths at the output to overcome the problems due to contention in an optical WDM network. OptiSystem of Optiwave is used to design schematic layout for the wavelength converter using SOA.

In this paper, we compare performance of fixed-grid Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) and Elastic Optical Networks (EONs) in dynamic provisioning of many-to-many (m2m) flows. Currently, with a growth of services relying on many-to-many communication paradigm such as distributed computing, inter-Data Center communication, content delivery networking or other requiring high-bandwidth in group communication, it is vital to deliver new solutions facilitating these demanding transmissions. Therefore, the authors investigate provisioning of m2m traffic in high-performance optical networks. This work focuses on dynamic Routing and Wavelength Assignment (RWA) problem in WDM networks as well as Routing and Spectrum Allocation (RSA) problem in EONs for m2m flows using replicated communication through auxiliary rendezvous servers.

There is an increasing demand for DWDM systems to support a set of network requirements (span length, total distance, capacity, etc) typically associated with previously distinct network application categories such as access, metro, regional, and long haul. This has led to the development of a multi-haul DWDM system, defined as an agile optical platform, able to combine multiple versions of transponders, amplifiers, and optical add/drop multiplexers (OADM) on the same optical link. The concept of a multi-haul system is applied in a study of DWDM networks that can employ, besides fixed OADM, two types of reconfigurable OADM (ROADM): a two-degree ROADM based on arrayed-waveguide gratings (AWG) and a multi-degree ROADM built with 5x1 wavelength-selective switches (WSS). A cost analysis on a network example calculates the savings obtained if an optimum mix of ROADMs is used on the same DWDM ring instead of deploying one single OADM type at all nodes. A technical feasibility study is performed to validate the performance of a DWDM system with up to 16 ROADMs in a network. To this purpose, OSNR penalties are experimentally determined for AWG and WSS ROADMs due to cascaded bandwidth narrowing, and crosstalk effects, with wavelength detuning values corresponding to locked and unlocked lasers.