A performance study of dynamic routing algorithm for SDM translucent optical networks with assistive storage

In this paper, we focus on dynamic lightpath provisioning in translucent spectrally spatially flexible optical networks (SS-FONs) created with a combination of both spectral (EON) and spatial (SDM) flexibility. We utilize the distance-adaptive transmission (DAT) in order to select a modulation for request and routing path in a flexible manner. Moreover, we assume that the signal regeneration is realized with the application of optical transceivers operating in a back-to-back (B2B) configuration. Finally, we propose a novel routing framework for SS-FONs, which involves performing Store-and-Forward (SnF) using Assistive Storage (AS), to reduce peak traffic demand and to better the utilization of network bandwidth. We design different test scenarios, varying in Assistive Storage availability, with and without modulation conversion during the B2B regeneration process and different real-life network topologies. In order to be able to compare the results of test scenarios, we propose a dynamic routing algorithm named adaptive routing with B2B regeneration and Assistive Storage (ARB2BAS) that solves routing, space and spectrum allocation (RSSA) optimization problem. We study how different flexibility aspect affects the network blocking performance, namely the Bandwidth Blocking Probability (BBP) metric. The obtained results show that the proper selection of an algorithm (scenario) has a significant impact on network performance in terms of the blocking probability. Moreover, introducing Assistive Storage enables the network to serve more requests for all of the studied B2B scenarios and network topologies.