Wavelengths and Regenerators Sharing in GMPLS-Controlled WSONs

In Wavelength Switched Optical Networks (WSONs), sharing of protection wavelengths is an attractive strategy to increase survivability against failures. However, to guarantee an acceptable quality of transmission (QoT), both working and protection paths may need to undergo optical-electrical-optical (OEO) regeneration. With this aim, the placement of a limited number of regenerators is a cost-effective solution to guarantee QoT. In this paper, the concept of sharing the protection resources is extended to regenerators. Moreover, shared regenerators can be exploited for ensuring QoT as well as for providing wavelength conversion. The main objective of this paper is the study of different strategies for the selection of regenerators and wavelengths in WSON with a GMPLS-based distributed control plane. Simulation results show a trade-off between the strategies achieving a high wavelength sharing and those achieving a high regenerator sharing.