A comparison of elastic and mixed line rate optical slot switching WDM metro rings
04 June 2013
We propose optimal resource allocation algorithms for two kinds of optical slot switching metro rings: fixed mixed line rate (fMLR), where the rate of each transponder (TRX) is fixed and set at network planning time, and elastic TRX, which rate may adjust dynamically on a per-slot basis during network operation. We then numerically compare the cost (CAPEX or energy) of fMLR and elastic networks and show that elastic networks may be up to 20% less expensive than fMLR networks, depending on the network size, TRX cost structure, shape of the traffic matrix, and number of available TRX rates.
