Abstract
The management of wavelength routed optical mesh networks is complex with many potential light path routes and numerous physical layer impairments to transmission performance. This complexity can be reduced by applying the ideas of abstraction from computer science where different equipment is described in the same basic terms. The noise-to-signal ratio can be used as a metric to describe the quality of transmission performance of a signal propagated through a network element and accumulates additively through a sequence of such elements allowing the estimation of end-to-end performance. This study aims to explore the robustness of the noise-to-signal ratio metric in an installed fibre infrastructure. We show that the abstracted noise-to-signal ratio is independent of the observers and their location. We confirm that the abstracted noise-to-signal ratio can reasonably predict the performance of light-paths subsequently set in our network. Having a robust network element abstraction that can be incorporated into routeing engines allows the network management controller to make decisions on the most effective way to use the network resources in terms of the routeing and data coding format.
Highlights
The management of wavelength routed optical mesh networks is complex with many potential light path routes and numerous physical layer impairments to transmission performance
The noise-to-signal ratio (NSR) measured on an optical spectrum analyser for an equivalent noise bandwidth equal to the symbol rate was compared to the transceiver measured performance
We have discussed the idea of abstraction applied to optical networks as providing each network element with a unified set of metrics that can be used to describe the properties and performance of that element
Summary
The management of wavelength routed optical mesh networks is complex with many potential light path routes and numerous physical layer impairments to transmission performance. This complexity can be reduced by applying the ideas of abstraction from computer science where different equipment is described in the same basic terms. The ROADMs are set to switch different wavelengths between different fibres allowing the different signals to follow different routes and arrive at their intended destinations This gives us a transparent wavelength routed optical network (WRON)[1] where the optical path from source node to destination node is determined by the transmitted optical wavelength and the ROADM switch configurations. To allow for impairment aware network control we must abstract the network links, for example
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