Shareability in optical networks: beyond bandwidth optimization

We extend the famous path protection sharing scheme and introduce the generalized sharing concept. In this concept, we allow for additional sharing of important node devices in order to reduce network cost. These node devices (e.g., optical-electronic-optical regenerators and pure all-optical converters) constitute the dominant cost factor in an optical backbone network, and reduction of their number is of paramount importance. For demonstration purposes, we extend the concept of 1:N shared path protection to allow for the sharing of electronic regenerators needed to cope with optical transmission impairments. Considerable cost reductions in electronic budget are demonstrated through numerical examples.