Benefit of adaptive FEC in shared backup path protected elastic optical network

Area of Science:

• Telecommunications Engineering
• Optical Networking
• Error Correction Coding

Background:

• Elastic Optical Networks (EONs) are crucial for modern high-capacity data transmission.
• Shared Backup Path Protection (SBPP) enhances network resilience but can increase resource overhead.
• Forward Error Correction (FEC) is vital for reliable data transmission, but its allocation impacts network efficiency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate an adaptive FEC allocation strategy for EONs with SBPP.
• To maximize the protected network capacity under dynamic conditions.
• To compare the performance of the adaptive FEC strategy against fixed FEC allocation.

Main Methods:

• An Integer Linear Programming (ILP) model was formulated to optimize FEC allocation.
• A Spectrum Window Plane (SWP)-based heuristic algorithm was developed for efficient implementation.
• Simulations were conducted to analyze network performance metrics.

Main Results:

• The adaptive FEC strategy requires significantly lower coding overhead compared to fixed FEC.
• Adaptive FEC results in higher overall network capacity.
• The adaptive strategy outperforms fixed FEC in spare capacity redundancy and average FEC overhead per channel.

Conclusions:

• Adaptive FEC allocation is a superior strategy for EONs with SBPP, enhancing capacity and efficiency.
• The proposed heuristic algorithm provides near-optimal performance and is computationally efficient.
• This approach offers significant advantages over traditional fixed FEC methods and shortest-path routing.