Investigation of Switching Times in Dynamic Optical Networks with Regard to Physical Constraints

Abstract:
In this paper, we study the dynamic reconfiguration of a core IP-over-WDM network which adapts to the changing traffic load which occurs during the course of the day. Our approach investigates the activation and deactivation of optical transponder according to the current traffic load in an optical link. This cannot be done arbitrarily fast. There are technical boundary conditions, such as the time for activation or deactivation of the transponder, as well as physical boundary conditions due to the generation of transients. Our results show that, despite the physical boundary conditions, the dynamic switching of transponders is a good approach to reduce energy consumption. The reconfiguration of active transponders can be achieved in a short time with only a slight increase of the blocking probability.