Cross-Layer Design of ASE-Noise-Limited Island-Based Translucent Optical Networks

This paper considers the design and dimensioning of translucent optical networks based on the concept of optical transparent islands. In systems with dispersion compensation, amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise becomes a dominant physical-layer impairment in constraining the maximal transparent reach limit of a lightpath. Taking this dominant impairment into account, an efficient transparent island division algorithm is proposed to divide a large transport network into a few optical transparent islands and to minimize the total number of opaque island-border nodes. Optimization models for translucent network dimensioning are presented to maximize served traffic demand given certain network capacity and to minimize the required wavelength capacity given a certain traffic demand matrix. Simulation studies show that the proposed transparent island division approach and network-dimensioning optimization models require only 25% opaque nodes to overcome the constraint of transparent reach limit and achieve performance as good as that of a more expensive 100% opaque network.