Traffic Grooming: a Changing Role in Green Optical Networks

The traffic grooming problem in optical networks has been extensively studied. It tackles the problem of aggregating sub-wavelength traffic onto optical lightpaths so that the network cost can be reduced. As of yet, the network cost considered is in terms of the number of wavelengths, SONET ADMs, and the amount of OEO processing. However, in recent years, the steadily rising cost of energy consumption of the network has raised a lot concerns. In this paper, we revisit the traffic grooming problem and provide formulations for green optical network design, and show a simple algorithm working at one of the layers identified by the model.