Future flexible-grid elastic optical networks are very promising due to their higher spectrum efficiency and flexibility comparing to the rigid spectrum grid optical networks realized with the traditional wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology. The maturity of key system components enabling flexgrid optical networks, such as advanced modulation techniques and multi-granular switching, is already high enough and thus their deployment is expected in the near future. The main feature of such networks is the removal of fix grid-space assignment (in general 50 GHz) to the optical connections independently of the required bandwidth. In fact, the available optical spectrum in flexgrid network is divided into frequency slots of a fixed spectrum width and an optical connection can be allocated into the number of slots that better matches the actual bandwidth of the connection demand. Nonetheless, such allocation must satisfy two constraints, i.e. the slots must be (i) contiguous in the spectrum domain and (ii) continuous along the links on the routing path. These constraints result in a need for dedicated Routing and Spectrum Allocation (RSA) algorithms able to operate under dynamic traffic conditions. From the network design perspective, an important issue is the selection of the frequency slot width which may have an impact on the network performance. Last but not least, network dynamicity entails spectrum fragmentation, which significantly reduces the network performance. In this paper we address these topics and, in particular: (1) we present an RSA algorithm to be used in dynamic network scenarios, (2) we study the optimal slot width as a function of the foreseen traffic to be served, and (3) we propose an algorithm to reallocate already established optical connections so that to make room in the spectrum for the new ones. Exhaustive simulation results reveal that the proposed approach improves the blocking probability performance in flexgrid optical networks. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
