Minimizing unavailability in Elastic Optical Networks: Pre-provisioning and provisioning protection strategy using DLP and DPP

Abstract

The rapid growth of internet traffic, driven by advancements in 5G and cloud services, has intensified the need for reliable optical networks. Infrastructure failures in these networks can lead to significant disruptions and financial losses, highlighting the critical importance of robust protection mechanisms. While existing research has explored various protection strategies based on on-demand provisioning of resources, a gap remains in understanding the effectiveness of pre-provisioning mechanisms specifically tailored for Elastic Optical Networks (EONs). Pre-provisioning is a strategy that involves reserving network resources, such as bandwidth or lightpaths, in advance of anticipated traffic demands. This proactive approach ensures that resources are readily available when needed, reducing setup times and enhancing network resilience. In this paper we propose a novel algorithm, BPreProvEON, designed to optimize resource allocation and enhance the survivability of EONs through a hybrid combination of pre-provisioning and on-demand provisioning of protection schemes. Extensive comparisons with traditional non-pre-provisioning and Shared Path Protection (SPP)-based pre-provisioning demonstrate BPreProvEON’s superior performance in bandwidth blocking rate and connection availability, highlighting its potential for enhancing the resilience and performance of optical networks.