Fragmentation aware routing and spectrum assignment algorithm

In flex-grid (elastic) networks, the spectrum can be allocated at a much finer granularity than it can be allocated in WDM networks. However, the dynamic establishment and tear down of lightpaths yields to the fragmentation of the spectrum with consequent increase in blocking of requests for connection establishment. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that allocation decisions try to mitigate the fragmentation problem. In line with that, this paper introduces the Multigraph Shortest Path Algorithm for novel Routing and Spectrum Allocation (RSA) in elastic networks. Results indicate that the joint use of the new algorithm with proposed cost functions can produce bandwidth blocking ratio four orders of magnitude lower than existing RSA algorithms.