Integrity enhancement of flexible/semi-flexible grid networks that minimizes disruption in spectrum defragmentation and bitrate-dependent blocking

We propose a novel disruption-minimized dynamic rerouting and spectrum defragmentation algorithm that addresses blocking ratio equalization on different bandwidth signals in flexible grid networks and our recently proposed semi-flexible grid networks. The blocking ratio inequality among channels stems from nonuniform frequency bandwidth allocation to different channels, which is unique to flexible/semi-flexible grid networks. The nonuniform assignment also causes more frequent channel setup blocking due to the severe fragmentation that is possible in the frequency domain. To resolve these issues, a dedicated bandwidth reservation technique for the broadest bandwidth paths is introduced to cope with the inequality issue, and the path blocking ratio is reduced by applying rerouting and a spectrum defragmentation technique. Numerical evaluations verify that combining these techniques can achieve a maximum improvement in the network performance including blocking ratio and equality. The results also confirm that semi-flexible grid networks can achieve almost the same performance as the currently studied flexible grid solution. Since the former have much relaxed hardware requirements, this novel approach is expected be a viable solution to realizing future flexible bandwidth networks cost-effectively.