Experimental assessment of a cognitive mechanism to reduce the impact of outdated TEDs in optical networks

We have recently proposed and demonstrated, by means of simulation, the benefits of a simple yet effective cognitive technique to enhance stateless Path Computation Element (PCE) algorithms with the aim of reducing the connection blocking probability when relying on a potentially non up-to-date Traffic Engineering Database (TED). In this paper, we validate and analyse its performance in an emulation environment (rather than in a simulation environment) that supports impairment-aware lightpath establishment. Emulation results demonstrate the reduction in blocking probability offered by the proposed technique, which also provides negligible impact on lightpath setup time.