Energy Efficiency of Dynamic Routing in Elastic Optical Networks with Back-to-Back Regeneration

In this paper, we focus on dynamic lightpath provisioning in translucent elastic optical networks (EONs) realizing super-channel transmission in which flexible signal regeneration achieved with transponders operating in back-to-back (B2B) configurations and modulation conversion is allowed. We study potential power consumption savings and performance gains in terms of bandwidth blocking probability in such flexible network scenarios. To this end, we analyze two alternative scenarios that differ in the way in which translucent lightpath connections are provisioned, namely, a reference one in which the use of regeneration is minimized and the one with flexible B2B regeneration. For comparing these scenarios, we propose two dynamic routing strategies, one aiming at the minimization of bandwidth blocking probability and the second dedicated to minimization of power consumption. The results of simulation experiments run on two representative network topologies show that flexible signal regeneration can be beneficial in terms of both analyzed metrics.