A spectrum spacing mechanism to enhance traffic grooming in elastic optical networks

Elastic optical networks allow for a division of the optical spectrum into frequency slots, which can be combined to create channels with bandwidth defined by demand. Their flexibility provides greater spectral efficiency when compared with traditional optical networks with fixed grids. Traffic grooming strategies allow for even more efficiency in the use of network resources, reducing the number of guard bands and the utilization of transmitters and receivers. This work proposes a mechanism that influences the RMLSA algorithms causing a controlled level of spacing between the lightpaths. This makes it possible to expand lightpaths in the future to fulfill new customer requests through traffic grooming. The proposed mechanism does not require the use of specific traffic grooming or RMLSA algorithms, and it can be used in conjunction with existing solutions or future solutions. The experiments carried out show that the proposed mechanism reduces the bandwidth blocking ratio and the number of necessary transceivers, and also increases the request–lightpath ratio and energy efficiency in the network.