Abstract
Optical metro networks evolution driven by 5G requirements face enormous challenges. Network functions virtualized in the data centers spread to the metro nodes, IP, and optical technologies must cooperate to meet the metro traffic aggregation role. Multiple technological options exist, and carriers confront the need to economically assess them, benchmarked in realistic deployments. This paper gives relevant insights to this aim. We first construct a set of metro network benchmarks. A strategic and distinctive effort is made to incorporate metro WDM topologies, traffic profiles and daily variation patterns, fault-tolerance requisites, and network operational choices, that faithfully reflect the expected 5G metro progression for a national carrier. Then, we use these networks to assess two technological choices. On one hand, the cost-effectiveness limits in terms of CAPEX reductions and energy efficiency brought from the possibility of having an agile control plane in the metro, capable of on-demand instantiation of IT and network resources. On the other hand, we investigate the benefits of replacing ROADMs by more cost-effective filterless technologies, but just limiting this replacement to degree-1 and degree-2 optical nodes, that are prevalent (e.g. >50%) in regional metro topologies. A novel capacity planning algorithm has been developed for IT, IP and optical resources allocation and dimensioning, providing fault-tolerant designs for the realistic scenarios defined. Simulation results have been obtained using the Net2Plan NIW (NFV over IP over WDM) open-source framework. Developed algorithms and part of the testing scenarios are available for inspection in public repositories of the EU METRO-HAUL project, the umbrella for our work. Our results show CAPEX benefits in the order of 10% and energy savings in the order of 20–30% stemming from the on-demand resource allocation in the metro. In addition, degree 1 and degree 2 optical nodes have shown to be a sweet spot for applying filterless switching, with mitigated impact of the associated spectrum waste.
Highlights
T HE continued growth in demand for data, both for consumers and business, is likely to receive a further boost as 5G applications come on-stream
Between two user terminals and which is assumed to transit always on a centralized user plane function (UPF) (UPF1). The source of this traffic is a user served by an access metro edge node (AMEN) node, and the destination can be at another metro node belonging to the same metro network (green flows in Fig. 5(a)), or another point outside the metro network reached through the interconnection gateway to the backbone
The techno-economic study presented in this paper is aimed at evaluating the cost vs. performance trade-offs related to two techr nOolpotgicicaall choices: data plane: We compare an optical metro fully equipped with non-blocking ROADMs in the data plane, with a network where more cost-effective filterless nodes are used, just in degree-1 or degree-2 AMEN nodes, appearing in leaf and ring segments of the optical metro topology, r being the rest of the nodes regular ROADMs
Summary
T HE continued growth in demand for data, both for consumers and business, is likely to receive a further boost as 5G applications come on-stream. The metro network segment is getting attention due to 5G performance-aware applications, with attributes often referred to as key performance indicators (KPIs) that present requirements involving bandwidth, latency, reliability and numbers of end users (for IoT applications). These upcoming applications will require an integrated transport + IT solution including storage/compute functions based on network function virtualization (NFV). We benchmark filterless optical architectures, as a cost-effective alternative to reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADMs), but just restricting their use to degree-1 and degree-2 metro nodes.
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