Optical network scaling: roles of spectral and spatial aggregation

Area of Science:

• Optical networking
• Telecommunications engineering

Background:

• Increasing data rates necessitate advanced optical network scaling strategies.
• Current wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) channels face throughput limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate spectral and spatial traffic aggregation for optical network scaling.
• To quantify the reduction in network routing complexity using these aggregation methods.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of multi-cast and wavelength-selective switches in a reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) architecture.
• Evaluation of colorless, directionless, and contentionless ROADM configurations.

Main Results:

• Spectral aggregation moderately reduces fiber count but significantly cuts switching components.
• Spatial aggregation substantially decreases both fiber count and switching components.
• Traffic aggregation can lead to reduced routing power and larger switching components.

Conclusions:

• Spectral and spatial aggregation are essential for efficient optical network scaling.
• Spatial aggregation offers greater reductions in network infrastructure compared to spectral aggregation.
• Potential drawbacks of traffic aggregation include power reduction and increased component size.