On provisioning strategies in translucent Elastic Optical Networks with flexible regeneration and superchannel transmission

Elastic Optical Networks (EONs) can increase the efficiency of already deployed optical fibers thanks to transponders that adjust the modulation format, baud-rate and number of optical carriers to achieve the desired transmission rate, bandwidth and reach. Due to the high cost of these transponders, transparent end-to-end lightpaths are usually desired, which can require a large amount of spectrum when provisioned over long distances. In this paper, we consider the case of translucent lightpaths, which make use of flexible regeneration schemes to reduce the amount of required spectrum. We analyze the trade-off between the spectrum usage and the number of transponder devices. In particular, we propose a proactive approach to provision EONs that considers the spectrum availability. Thus, it is possible to explore the referred trade-off with a load-incremental perspective, which may be relevant for network operators. Results show how the proposed approach can increase the supported capacity in the network at the cost of additional transponder devices.