On efficient protection design for dynamic multipath provisioning in elastic optical networks

Multipath provisioning (MPP) in elastic optical networks (EONs) can improve the network performance effectively. In this paper, we study the protection schemes for MPP to ensure 100% restoration against single-link failures. We design three algorithms, namely, Instant-ILP, PWCE-MPP and mPWCEMPP. The first one leverages a simple integer linear programming (ILP) model to design the optimal working-backup structure for each request instantly, while the rest two utilize protected working capacity envelop (PWCE) and spectrum planning to further reduce bandwidth blocking probability (BBP). Moreover, mPWCE-MPP considers the differences among working and backup paths, and ensures that the maximum path-difference (MPD) of a request will not increase dramatically in restoration. Simulation results show that mPWCE-MPP can obtain the best trade-off between BBP and average MPD.