Load-balanced adaptive routing flexible grouping spectrum and core assignment in SDM-EONs based on mixed super-channel

Abstract

• The effective load balancing is achieved by genetic algorithm-assisted offline/online weight-updating strategies. • The fragmentation suppression is realized with less than half of the previous complexity and no transmission disruption. • More than 80% of spectrum fragments are suppressed due to the flexible-grouping mechanism. • The service blocking probability is kept as zero when the traffic load is lower than 300 Erlang in NSFNET and USNET. • The quality of service (QoS) of transmission requests with high priority is greatly enhanced. With the significant increasing of network bandwidth demands, the development of spatial division multiplexing elastic optical networks (SDM-EONs) attracts much attention from both academic and industry. Due to the continuity and contiguity constraints in spectrum allocation, the generation of spectrum fragments causes serious impacts on the performance of SDM-EONs. Meanwhile, the load imbalance is a main negative factor of SDM-EONs’ performance. In this paper, we focus on the issues of spectrum fragmentation and load imbalance. Specifically, we first design a genetic algorithm-assisted offline weight modulation and an online dynamic weight adjustment strategy to realize load-balanced adaptive routing. Then, we introduce a flexible-grouping mechanism to suppress the generation of spectrum fragments. Finally, we propose a weight-updating and flexible-grouping routing, spectrum and core assignment (WUFG RSCA) algorithm based on mixed super-channel for SDM-EONs. Our simulation results confirm that the proposed algorithm obtains effective reduction in spectrum fragments and network service blocking probability. In addition, the results prove that the WUFG RSCA algorithm can improve the spectrum resource utilization and enhance the quality of service for transmission requests with high priority.