Dynamic restoration with GMPLS and SDN control plane in elastic optical networks [Invited]

Optical transport networks typically deploy dynamic restoration mechanisms in order to automatically recover optical connections disrupted by network failures. Elastic optical networks (EONs), currently emerging as the next-generation technology to be adopted in optical transport, introduce new challenges for traditional generic multiprotocol label-switching (GMPLS)-based restoration that may seriously impact the achievable recovery time. At the same time, the software-defined networking (SDN) framework is emerging as an alternative control plane. It is therefore important to investigate possible benefits provided by SDN in the implementation of restoration mechanisms for EONs. This paper proposes a dynamic restoration scheme for EONs based on the SDN framework. The proposed scheme contemporarily exploits centralized path computation and node configuration to avoid contentions during the recovery procedure with the final aim of minimizing the recovery time. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated by means of simulations in terms of recovery time and restoration blocking probability and compared against three reference schemes based on GMPLS and SDN.