Protection in Elastic O ptical Networks

Roza Goscien, Krzysztof Walkowiak, Miroslaw Klinkowski, and Jacek Rak

Abstract
In this a rtic le , w e a n a ly z e g a in s resulting from the use of E O N arch itectu res with
s p e c ia l fo cus on tran sp o rtatio n of clo u d -re a d y an d content-oriented traffic in the
context of netw ork re silie n ce . E O N s a re a pro m ising a p p ro a c h for future o p tical
transport networks a n d , a p a rt from im proving the netw ork spectral efficie n cy, bring
such new ca p ab ilitie s a s squeezed protection, w h ich reduces resource requirements
in fa ilu re s c e n a rio s . In the in tro d u cto ry p a rt, w e present a b a ckg ro u n d on new
n etw ork s e rv ic e s b a se d on clo ud com puting an d content o rien tatio n p a ra d ig m s,
E O N arch itectu re s, an d their su rv iv ab ility m echanism s. N e xt, w e sh o w the im pact
of disasters on E O N perform ance. To support the discussio n, in the evaluation part
w e pro vid e sim ulation results to co m p are su rvivab le E O N s an d wavelength-sw itch-
ing o p tical n etw orks, estim ate the e fficie n cy of different su rv iv a b le E O N schem es
supporting cloud- an d content-oriented traffic, an d a sse ss the robustness of E O N s
to disasters.

s a benefit of the fast electronic signal processing and
Silicon photonic integrated circuit technologies, opti­
cal networking has recently experienced significant advances
that have been governed by developments of spectrally effi-
cient modulation techniques and new functional optical com-
ponents, as well as other developments. With the advent of
new networking capabilities and network services, it is broadly
expected that optical transport networks will evolve from the
current wavelength-switched optical network (WSON) archi-
tectures built with wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM)
technology toward elastic optical network (EON) architectures
[1].
Communication networks operate in unpredictable environ-
ments, and are based on devices and media that are likely to
fail due to many causes including various disasters. Thus, it is
impossible to predict and eliminate all factors that can affect
connectivity in the network. Concurrently, the consequences
of network failures can become critical, especially when relat-
ed to backbone networks. Therefore, network resilience is an
indispensable part of analyzing existing and designing new
networks.
In this article, we show advantages of EONs in terms
of resilience compared to WSONs for backbone networks
carrying standard unicast traffic as well as cloud traffic and
content-oriented traffic. In particular, we compare both
approaches under different protection schemes including
dedicated path protection (DPP) and shared backup path
protection (SBPP) according to such performance metrics
as capital/operational expenditure (CAPEX/OPEX), power
consumption, and spectrum usage. In addition, for EONs, we
analyze squeezed protection — a new approach available for
Roza Goscien and Krzysztof Walkowiak are with the Faculty o f Electron­
ics, Wroclaw University o f Technology.
Miroslaw Klinkowski is with the National Institute o f Telecommunica-
tions.
Jacek Rak is with the Faculty o f Electronics, Telecommunications, and
Informatics, Gdansk University o f Technology.
this technology. Also, we focus on large-scale disasters and
examine the efficiency of different protection methods. We
present a case study with realistic data traffic models devel-
oped based on Cisco traffic predictions and using two repre-
sentative network topologies. Obtained results show that EON
significantly outperforms WSON for all analyzed protection
approaches. WSON requires much more resources compared
to EON in terms of all considered performance metrics. Final-
ly, the results show that even for relatively large-scale disasters
(a circular area with radius up to 500 km), protection methods
with link-disjoint paths provide good performance and protect
most demands (less than 7 percent of demands need resto-
ration).
N ew Services in Communication Networks
Content-Oriented Networks
The content-oriented network (CON) approach was recently
proposed to facilitate the distribution of various content over
the Internet to provide a network infrastructure service that is
better suited to contemporary customer needs and more resil-
ient to disruptions and failures. The “Cisco Visual Networking
Index” report predicts that content delivery networks (CDNs)
will carry over 51 percent of Internet traffic in 2017 compared
to 34 percent in 2012. Note that the idea of CON is also
known under many other names including information-centric
networking, content-centric networking, content-aware net-
work, and so on [2].
The general idea of the CON approach is to apply various
techniques and architectures including in-network caching,
multiparty communications through replication, and inter-
action models decoupling senders and receivers. However,
since the whole implementation of the CON concept requires
numerous new solutions and changes in existing networks, a
compromise solution currently used in the Internet is CDN,
defined as a large distributed system of dedicated data centers
and servers placed strategically across the Internet provid-
ing replication of content, which ensures high availability and
improves network resilience. Examples of popular CDNs are
Akamai, Level3, and Limelight.

88 0890-8044/15/$25.00 © 2015 IEEE IEEE Network • November/December 2015

Cloud Computing
According to “Cisco Global Cloud Index” reports, global cloud
IP traffic will increase nearly 4.5-fold from 2012 to 2017 with
a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 35 percent.
Moreover, by 2017, 63 percent of all workloads processed in
data centers will be executed in the cloud. This unprecedented
popularity of cloud computing has been triggered mostly by IT
trends like [3]:
• The growing attractiveness of Internet streaming services
(e.g., video and game streaming)
• The emergence of the big data concept defined as a general
idea to explain the exponential increase, availability, and
use of information coming from different sources, for exam-
ple, social networking services (Facebook, Twitter, etc.),
research units, state and local governments, companies, and
healthcare institutions
• The “dot-com boom” and parallel explosion of interest in
outsourcing of IT services
• The popularity, maturity, and scalability of the present net-
work infrastructure
• The advent of data centers established by companies such as
Google, Amazon, and Microsoft
The two key elements of the cloud computing concept are an
easily accessible network and distributed computing resources.
Referring to these two factors, we can define three major types
of services provided in cloud computing systems: infrastructure
as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software
as a service (SaaS). The last architecture seems to be the sim-
plest from the business perspective and the farthest ahead due
to fast development of technologies that support web services
and service-oriented architecture (SOA) [3-5].
A key element of cloud computing is virtualization, defined
as a set of techniques that abstracts the details of a physical
element (e.g., hardware platform, storage device, or network
resources) and provides virtualized resources. Virtualization is
usually implemented through the concept of a virtual machine
(VM) that emulates a physical computing environment, which
can easily be moved between host servers or data centers. This
migration capability allows sharing of computing resources
in data centers, which provides cost efficiency, elasticity, and
resilience. If migration is made between various data cen-
ters, the VMs and associated data must be sent (i.e., migrat-
ed) between data centers; next, all network traffic related to
migrated systems is carried to/from a new data center. The
relatively easy migration mechanism allows for application of
anycasting, defined as one-to-one-of-many transmission. Note
that anycasting also appears in the context of CONs, where
the same content is available in multiple data centers, and the
customers can be redirected to one of the sites according to
criteria like cost, performance, and resilience [3-5].
Elastic Optical Networks
Evolution of Optical Transport Networks
Nowadays, optical transport networks rely on WDM technol-
ogy and implement WSON architectures, enabling all-opti-
cal transmission and switching of data streams of 10 Gb/s, 40
Gb/s, and, recently, 100 Gb/s rates. Such networks operate
within rigid/fixed frequency grids and with single-line-rate
transponders, making use of single-carrier modulation tech-
niques. Although WDM provides high transport capacities, the
main drawbacks of current WSON architectures remain their
low spectral efficiency and lack of adaptability to heteroge-
neous bandwidth demands.
The main innovation of EONs with respect to convention-
al WSONs is the provisioning of sub-wavelength granularity
for low-rate transmission and super-channel connectivity for
IEEE Network • November/December 2015
accommodating ultra-high-capacity client signals within a com-
mon network. The key elements of EON architectures, which
should be gradually introduced in optical networks, are band-
width-variable transponders (BV-Ts), bandwidth-variable
wavelength cross-connects (BV-WXCs), and flexible frequency
grids.
The role of BVTs is to adapt the client data signal to be
sent to/received from the optical network with just enough
frequency resources and according to transmission path char-
acteristics. Therefore, advanced modulation formats (e.g.,
phase shift keying, PSK, and quadrature amplitude modula­
tion, QAM) and transmission techniques, both single-carrier
and multi-carrier (e.g., optical orthogonal frequency-division
multiplexing, O-OFDM), are applied. Adaptation of the trans-
mitted signal bandwidth/bit rate can be achieved by either
adjustment of modulation levels or allocation of subcarri-
ers. Concurrently, BV-WXCs allow an optical routing path
through the network to be created by switching transmitted
signals within their frequency bandwidth to appropriate switch
output ports. The International Telecommunication Union
— Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) has
updated the G.694.1 recommendation and included the defi-
nition of a flexible WDM grid. Refer to [1, 6] for more details
and proof-of-concept results concerning EONs.
Resilience in Elastic Optical Networks
In general, there are two main approaches for providing net-
work resilience: protection and restoration. Protection meth-
ods are based on actions undertaken in the network design
phase and require reserving some redundant backup resources
like bandwidth for working connections. Thus, their applica-
tion increases the CAPEX and OPEX cost of the network, but
provides quick recovery time. On the contrary, the restoration
process is applied when a failure occurs and aims to update
routing rules in order to restore the required connectivity
in the network. Restoration does not reserve any redundant
resources in advance, and therefore is more cost-efficient than
protection. However, the main disadvantage of restoration
mechanisms is long recovery time when compared to protec-
tion mechanisms. Thus, the processing time is a crucial issue
when planning and implementing restoration mechanisms
and algorithms. In this article, our main focus is on protection
methods in EONs.
In optical networks like EONs and WSONs, a very common
constraint is spectrum/wavelength continuity, in which a single
lightpath established for a connection demand must occupy
the same spectrum range (wavelength) on all the links includ-
ed in the routing paths. This assumption follows from the fact
that spectrum/wavelength converters are expensive, so using
spectrum/wavelength conversion significantly increases the net-
work cost. Accounting for the spectrum continuity constraint,
there are two basic protection methods considered in the liter-
ature for EONs: dedicated path protection (DPP) and shared
backup path protection (SBPP). In both methods, apart from
provisioning a working (primary) lightpath for each connection
demand, a backup (secondary) lightpath is pre-calculated.
The main difference between DPP and SBPP follows from
the fact that SBPP allows spectrum resources to be shared
between backup lightpaths belonging to different demands
under the condition that these resources can be used only
by one demand in a given failure scenario. On the contrary,
backup lightpaths in DPP have their own dedicated spectrum
resources. By these means, SBPP brings spectrum and cost
savings compared to DPP. Moreover, there are two categories
of DPP schemes: 1 + 1 and 1:1. In the former method, the
signal (traffic) is permanently duplicated on both the work-
ing path and the backup path. The receiving node selects the
89
 Figure 1. Protection methods for EONs: a) DPP; b) SBPP; c) squeezed DPP; d) squeezed SBPP.
signal with the highest quality. The 1+ 1 protection approach
is very efficient in terms of recovery time but quite expensive
in terms of bandwidth usage. The 1:1 method in turn assumes
that in failure-free conditions the signal (traffic) is transmitted
over the working path, which allows some extra traffic to be
transported along the backup path in failure-free conditions.
When a failure occurs along the working path, the extra traffic
must be preempted from the backup path to enable switch-
ing the traffic affected by the failure onto the backup path.
Consequently, in comparison with the 1+ 1 technique, the 1:1
approach requires higher recovery time values [7].
Additionally, in EONs for both methods (DPP and SBPP)
a special protection mechanism called bandwidth squeezing
can be applied [8]. Bandwidth squeezing assumes that after a
failure, only a part (e.g., 20 percent) of the primary (working)
flow is to be protected (or restored); for instance, it can con-
cern only high-priority traffic. Thus, less backup traffic is to be
supported. As a repercussion, cheaper transponders with less
power consumption can be applied, and less spectrum resourc-
es (i.e., narrower channels) are necessary. That mechanism
provides additional resource savings (in terms of all perfor­
mance metrics), the amount of which depends on the part of
the traffic to be protected. Note that bandwidth squeezed pro-
tection, feasible in EONs due to the use of flexible frequency
grids, is not available in fixed-grid WSONs.
The protection methods described above are designed to
protect the network against a specific type of failure, which
influences the process of selecting backup lightpaths. Most
commonly, these methods protect only against single link fail-
ures. Two link-disjoint routing paths are thus selected for the
primary and backup lightpaths.
To illustrate the EON protection methods described above,
90
in Fig. 1 we present an example. We consider a simple six-
node network with two demands: A to B and E to F. We
assume that both spectrum segments assigned to the primary
and backup lightpaths are located around the same central
frequency. The former demand uses primary path A-B and
backup path A-C-D-B. The working path — according to the
bit rate of the demand and the selected modulation format
— needs four slices of spectrum assigned within a flexible fre­
quency grid, for example, ITU-T Recommendation G.694.1,
while the backup path (which is much longer) uses six slices
due to using another modulation format. Demand E to F is
allocated to primary path E-F and backup path E-C-D-F. Both
paths need four slices. For each link, we report the corre-
sponding slice occupancy. We can easily notice that the DPP
method consumes more spectrum compared to SBPP. This
follows directly from the possibility provided by SBPP to share
the spectrum along link C-D. In bandwidth squeezed scenari-
os, we assume that backup paths of both demands carry lower
bit rates compared to primary paths, and consequently, both
backup paths need only two slices of spectrum. This assump-
tion provides additional savings in spectrum usage.
Besides path-based protection schemes like DPP and SBPP,
link-based protection schemes, such as p-cycle and cooperative
fast protection (CFP), can also be applied to protect the opti-
cal network. In link protection, the affected traffic is rerouted
around the failed link. In general, path-based protection meth-
ods typically use less capacity than link-based protection, since
under link protection, the backup paths are commonly longer
than with path protection [7]. Moreover, p-cycle and CFP
approaches in the basic form are formulated for networks with
spectrum/wavelength conversion possibility. Therefore, the
applicability of these methods is significantly limited in a case
IEEE Network • November/December 2015
when spectrum/wavelength continuity constraint is imposed,
which is a very common assumption in optical networks. More
specifically, after a failure, the part of a broken lightpath (e.g.,
a failed link) is omitted by a new routing path (e.g., using a
p-cycle), but the same spectrum range must be used as in the
unchanged parts of the working path. Consequently, p-cycles
(or other protection structures) must be reserved for a par­
ticular spectrum range, which complicates the network design
process. To avoid spectrum overlapping, finding backup light-
paths bypassing the failed link (but using the same spectrum
range as the working paths) may significantly increase the
overall transmission distance of a backup path for a particular
lightpath. As a consequence, either a less efficient modulation
format must be used for the backup path, or additional equip-
ment like transponders or regenerators are required to pro-
vision the lightpath with an efficient modulation format. The
former case will increase spectrum requirements, while the
latter will lead to an increase of the network cost and power
consumption. Therefore, in this article we focus only on path-
based protection schemes like DPP and SBPP.
(a)

Disasters in Backbone Networks Seattl

Disaster events can strike the backbone networks at any time,
anywhere. Although by definition they are considered rare,
their occurrence is inevitable, and their risk is rising. Another
important observation is that their negative effects, always con-
sidered significant, cannot be precisely evaluated in advance.
San Francis*
Instead, vulnerability of network nodes/links to disaster-based
Los Angel
failures can only be based on probability analysis depending
on, for example, the distance of the network element from the
event epicenter, the area topography, as well as the character-
istics of a network element itself (also comprising its physical
protection features, such as location of the element in the
building) [9].
Disasters in communication networks are frequently the (b)

result of natural factors, including hurricanes, tsunamis, floods,

earthquakes, solar flares, or even meteor collisions [9, 10].
Every year, we observe tens of hurricanes worldwide, often
leading to power outages disrupting communications on a
massive scale for a relatively long time (i.e., 10 days on aver-
age). Examples include Hurricane Katrina, which caused
severe losses in Louisiana and Mississippi in the southeastern
United States in August 2005 [10]. Earthquakes can bring
about even greater destruction to communication networks
due to the long time of manual repair actions. For instance the
earthquake of 7.1 magnitude in December 2006 in southern
Taiwan resulted in simultaneous failures of seven submarine
links providing Internet connectivity between Asia and North
America, which visibly affected the international communica-
tions to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan [10].
Another example is the Greatest Japan Earthquake on March
11, 2011 (of 9.0 magnitude), which caused widespread damage
to undersea cables, as well as completely or partially destroyed
telecom switching offices.
Other reasons for disasters in communication networks
include intentional human activities, such as bombing or
weapons of mass destruction attacks. Finally, disasters may
also occur as a result of technological issues (e.g., the North-
east Power Grid Blackout in the United States) or malicious
actions, such as electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks with
intense energy fields, disrupting nodes and links in a specific
geographic area.
Case Studies
To study potential advantages of EONs in the context of
resilience in cloud-ready and content-oriented networks, we
present a case study with real network topologies and ser-
Figure 2 .Network topologies, locations of data centers, and
interconnection points: a) Euro28; b) US26.
vice models. The protection approaches discussed in previ-
ous sections for both EON and WSON optical architectures
are compared for two representative network topologies: a
pan-European network and a U.S. long-haul network (called
Euro28 and US26 in the article, accordingly), shown in Fig. 2.
Traffic patterns were generated according to Cisco predictions.
As the optimization method, we applied an algorithm similar
to the one from [11] modified according to the examined pro-
tection methods.
Optical Architecture Assumptions
We used similar optical architecture assumptions as in [12].
In particular, for EONs we assumed BV-Ts implementing the
polarization-division multiplexing (PDM)-OFDM technology
with multiple modulation formats selected adaptively between
binary phase shift keying (BPSK), quadrature PSK (QPSK),
and x-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), where x
belongs to {8, 16, 32, 64}. Here, the spectral efficiency was
equal to 1, 2, ..., 6 b/s/Hz, respectively, for these modulation
formats. PDM allows the spectral efficiency to be doubled.
The BV-T can combine a required (i.e., not fixed) number of
contiguous subcarriers, each one occupying 12.5 GHz, modu-
lated with the same format and allocated to serve at a given
bit rate. For instance, a 50 Gb/s demand can be carried by a
100 Gb/s PDM-capable transponder using one subcarrier and
QPSK modulation. EON operates within a flexible ITU-T
grid of 6.25 GHz granularity. Two types of BV-Ts were used,

IEEE Network • November/December 2015 91

 □ WSON_NP □ WSON_SBPP □ WSON_DPP
□ EON NP m EON SBPP □ EON DPP
(a)
□ WSON_NP □ WSON_SBPP □ WSON_DPP
□ EON_NP ■ EON_SBPP □ EON_DPP
^ 1200
â 1050
I 900
o. 750
Ito 600
§ 450
^ 300
ã 150
£ 0
□ WSON_NP □ WSON_SBPP □ WSON_DPP
□ EON NP ■ EON SBPP □ EON DPP
16.0
14.0
£12.0
—10.0
| 8.0
(v
6.0
4.0
2.0
0.0
Figure 3 . Comparison of EON and WSON performance for various protection methods: a-b) cost for Euro28 and US26;
c-d) power consumption for Euro28 and US26; e-f) spectrum usage for Euro28 and US26.
each characterized by a different capacity limit (i.e., 100 Gb/s
and 400 Gb/s, respectively). We made use of the transmission
model presented in [13] to estimate the transmission reach of
an optical signal as a function of the selected modulation level
and bit rate. We introduced a 12.5 GHz guard band between
neighboring connections. In the case of WSON, we assumed
that the network operated within the fixed 50 GHz ITU-T
grid with fixed 100 Gb/s transponders and transmission reach
equal to 2100 km. In all analyzed scenarios, we assumed that
the transmission reach is extended by means of regenerators,
which were applied whenever necessary.
In this section, we show analysis of three performance met-
rics: CAPEX/OPEX cost, power consumption, and spectrum
usage. Cost included the CAPEX cost of equipment (tran-
sponders, regenerators) and one-year OPEX cost according
to fiber leasing (e.g., as in [14]). Regenerators, if used, were
dedicated to lightpaths and not shared between different con-
nections. All cost results are given in Euros in terms of the
current prices including inflation. Following [14], the uniform
cost of transponders is equal to 3.75 and 5.5, respectively, for
100 (in WSON and EON) and 400 Gb/s (in EON). The power
consumption denotes the sum of energy requirements of all
transponders and regenerators. The power consumption of the
100 Gb/s WDM transponder is fixed and equal to 215 W. The
power consumption of a BV-T depends on both the number
of subscribers and the modulation format used. It is calculated
using the same model as in [12]. The costs and power cosum-
92
□ WSON_NP □ WSON_SBPP □ WSON_DPP
□ EON NP m EON SBPP □ EON DPP
(b)
□ WSON_NP □ WSON_SBPP □ WSON_DPP
□ EON NP ■ EON SBPP □ EON DPP
O WSON_NP □ WSON_SBPP □ WSON_DPP
□ EON NP ■ EON SBPP □ EON DPP
tion of regenerators are 1.6 and 1.2 times higher, respectively
[12]. Lastly, the spectrum usage was calculated according to
the width of spectrum in terahertz required in the network to
serve all demands.
Simulation Setup
In Fig. 2, we show for each network location of nine data cen-
ters and three interconnection points used to forward interna-
tional traffic to other networks (e.g., locations of submarine
cable landing stations). Locations of both data centers and
interconnection points were selected according to data avail-
able at http://www.datacentermap.com/.
The traffic model was created for a period of six subsequent
years starting from 2014 under the forecast of Cisco shown in
the “Cisco Visual Networking Index” and “Cisco Global Cloud
Index” reports. The data included in the reports was used to
obtain values of compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to
create the traffic matrix including service demands of four types:
• City — City (CC) traffic representing all non-data center
traffic (CAGR 18 percent);
• City — Data Center (CD) traffic representing all data-cen-
ter-to-user traffic (CAGR 31 percent);
• Data Center — Data Center (DD) traffic (CAGR 32 per-
cent);
• International (IN) traffic — all traffic leaving/entering the
particular network calculated as a percentage of all network
traffic.
IEEE Network • November/December 2015
Figure 4 . EON squeezed protection versus WSON as a function of squeezing factor SQ for year 2019: a) Euro28; b) US26.
The ratio of each traffic type in the overall traffic was calcu-
lated according to Cisco reports with an additional assump-
tion that the ratio of international traffic was 20 percent and
10 percent of the overall traffic for Euro28 and US26 net-
works, respectively. We assumed that in the first year (2014),
the overall traffic was 15 Tb/s and 20 Tb/s for Euro28 and
US26 networks, respectively. Next, in subsequent years the
traffic grew according to the CAGR growth for each partic­
ular type of traffic. Traffic demands were generated analo-
gously as in [11] using a multivariable gravity model with real
data related to population of the region served by the network
node, geographical distance between cities, and economy level
expressed by gross domestic product (GDP). Note that we
applied anycast approach to provision CD traffic, while other
types of demands (i.e., CC, DD, and IN) were served by uni-
cast demands.
EO N vs. W S O N
In the beginning, we compared EON and WSON with regard
to the performance of DPP and SBPP protection schemes. In
more detail, each tested traffic matrix, related to the case with
nine data centers and years 2014-2019, was allocated in the
network (either EON or WSON) according to the selected
protection method. To show the additional costs of introduc-
ing the protection, here we also report the “no protection”
(NP) case, which corresponds to an unprotected network. As
a failure scenario, we considered a single link failure implying
link-disjointness of the corresponding primary and backup
paths.
In Fig. 3, we present all investigated performance met-
rics (i.e., network cost, power consumption, and spectrum
usage) of both EON and WSON with different protection
techniques. We can easily notice that EON significantly out-
performs WSON for all reported performance metrics and
analyzed protection approaches. On average, WSON requires
about 65 percent more resources in terms of cost and spec-
trum and about 250 percent more resources in terms of power
consumption, when compared to EON. A detailed analysis of
the EON performance in terms of the examined protection
methods shows that for cost and power consumption, SBPP
and DPP provide similar results (being about 130 percent
higher, compared to the network without protection). In terms
of the spectrum usage, we can observe significant differenc-
es between SBPP and DPP (80 percent versus 180 percent
increase of the spectrum usage, compared to the “no protec-
tion” case). This dependency clearly follows from the fact that
SBPP enables spectrum sharing. Finally, we point out that for
subsequent years, all performance metrics grow due to larger
traffic volumes.
Squeezed Protection
In this section, we focus on the performance of squeezed pro-
tection. Recall that squeezed protection can be applied only in
EONs for both DPP and SBPP approaches. However, in this
IEEE Network • November/December 2015
section only the DPP approach was considered. We simulated
various squeezing parameters (SQ) in the range from 10 per­
cent up to 90 percent. For instance, SQ = 20 percent means
that only 20 percent of the primary path traffic (bit-rate) was
to be protected by the backup path.
In Fig. 4, we show the relative performance of squeezed
protection for different values of SQ param eter and EON
DPP in relation to WSON DPP results. Presented results
refer to the traffic m atrix for year 2019 and nine data
centers located in each network. For each traffic pat-
tern, we obtained the value of the considered p e rfo r­
mance m etric of a particular squeezed scenario (e.g.,
COST_SQ), as well as the corresponding value yielded
using WSON (COST_WSON), and calculated the relative
perform ance as a quotient C o ST_SQ / COST_WSON.
For instance, the value of 40 percent means that the par­
ticular squeezing scenario required only 40 percent of
resources needed for the WSON DPP m ethod and thus
provided 60 percent savings.
We can see that for both networks, bandwidth squeez-
ing reduces resources requirements. The largest gains are
observed for the power consumption. This can be explained by
our power consumption model, in which power consumption
of BVTs depends on the number of used subscribers. Since
in the traffic pattern there are many demands with relative-
ly small bit-rate requirements, it is more power-efficient to
use BVTs than the WDM transponders of fixed power con-
sumption. However, with subsequent years the gap between
WSONs and EONs decreases due to the growing bit-rate of
demands.
In Fig. 5, we rep o rt cost, power consum ption, and
spectrum usage for three evaluated squeezed protection
scenarios (SQ = 10 percent, SQ = 30 percent, SQ = 50
percent) and pure DPP (SQ = 100 percent). The main
observation is that for subsequent years, the benefits fol-
lowing from using the squeezed protection increase in
com parison to the pure DPP approach. For US26 net-
work and year 2019, the SQ = 10 percent approach pro-
vides gains of 14 percent, 45 percent and 23 percent, over
the respective results of DPP scheme referring to cost,
power consumption, and spectrum usage metrics, accord-
ingly. The corresponding values obtained for the Euro28
network are very similar. The largest gains observed for
the power consumption function can be explained in the
same way as above.
Note, that the less is the value of the SQ parameter, the
bigger are resource savings, but at the same time, less traffic
is protected in case of a failure. Similarly, the bigger SQ value,
the more data is protected, but the less resource savings can
be obtained. Therefore, squeezed protection is a compromise
between the amount of additional resources and the data that
is protected in case of a failure. As a consequence, squeezed
protection is a good approach if only a part of primary traffic
flows is to be protected.
93
 |□ SQ = 10% □ SQ = 30% □ SQ = 50% □ DPP |
| □ SQ = 10% □ SQ = 30% □ SQ = 50% □ DPP |
| □ SQ = 10% □ SQ = 30% □ SQ = 50% □ DPP |
Figure 5 . EON squeezed protection for various squeezing parameters in comparison to pure DPP: a-b) cost for Euro28 and US26;
c-d) power consumption for Euro28 and US26; e-f) spectrum usage for Euro28 and US26.
Large-Scale Disasters
The last part of simulations refers to large-scale disasters.
According to [15], many large-scale disasters and other
network challenges can be modeled as a circle centered at
specified geographical coordinates with radius r. Note that
large-scale disasters can be also modeled using some other
figures like line or irregular polygon [15]. However, the line
model in many cases causes only a single link failure and recall
that this type of a failure scenario was concerned in previous
sections. Results for the polygon model in our opinion would
follow the general trends observed in the context of the circle
model. Therefore, performance evaluation is confined in this
section to circular disaster regions (CDRs) only.
We examined CDRs of various sizes scaling the radius from
50 km up to 500 km with a step of 50 km. For each size of the
radius, 1000 CDRs were generated with location of CDR cen-
ters determined using the uniform distribution function. In Fig.
6, we report the average results for both analyzed topologies.
Results for link failures are presented first in Figs. 6a and b
showing the percentage distribution of three categories:
• No link failure: No link is covered by the disaster.
• Single link failure: Only one link is broken.
• Multiple link failure: More than one link is broken).
Similarly, in Figs. 6c and d we report characteristics referring
to node failures. Finally, the last two graphs (Figs 6e and f)
present the influence of the disaster on EON demands (light-
paths). In more detail, all demands included in the traffic
matrix for 2019 and with nine data centers were established
in the network with DPP protection. Next, for each CDR we
94
|□ SQ = 10% □ SQ = 30% □ SQ = 50% □ DPP |
| □ SQ = 10% □ SQ = 30% □ SQ = 50% □ DPP |
| □ SQ = 10% □ SQ = 30% □ SQ = 50% □ DPP |
(f)
checked the effect of a particular disaster on each demand and
reported the percentage distribution of four categories:
• Released demands: At least one of the end nodes of a
demand is broken; thus, the demand cannot be restored and
is released from the network.
• No path affected: Both primary and backup paths of a
demand operate after the failure.
• One path affected: Either the primary or backup path of a
demand is cut by the failure.
• Both paths affected: Both primary or backup paths of the
demand are broken due to the failure.
Notice that only in the last case, the DPP approach with
link-disjoint paths does not protect the demand, and conse-
quently restoration is required to provide the uninterrupted
service. The results show that even for radius of 500 km, the
percentage of lightpaths that require restoration is relatively
small (6.73 percent for the Euro28 network and 4.70 percent
for the US26 network accordingly). Consequently, the DPP
method experiences good performance even for large-scale
disasters. Note that in the case of SBPP, the results are com-
parable to DPP.
Conclusions
We have analyzed the main advantages of optical transport
networks implementing the elastic optical network technology
in the context of network resilience. Apart from discussing the
main features of EONs, we have focused on new network ser-
vices, including cloud computing and content-oriented applica-
IEEE Network • November/December 2015
 I No link failure O Single link failure ■ Multiple link failure No link failure O Single link failure ■ Multiple link failure

50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
Radius (km) Radius (km)
(a) (a)

IN o node failure O Single node failure ■ Multiple node failure No node failure O Single node failure ■ Multiple node failure

50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
Radius (km) Radius (km)
(c) (d)

Released demands □ No path affected I Released demands □ No path affected

One path affected □ Both paths affected I One path affected □ Both paths affected
100% 100%
90% • 90%
80% • 80%
70% • 70%
60% • 60%
50% • 50%
40% • 40%
30% • 30%
20%
10%
0%
•
•

50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500

20%
10%
0%
50 100 150 200
d□□□□d
250 300 350 400 450 500
Radius (km) Radius (km)
(e) (f)

Figure 6 . Impact of large-scale disasters — network performance as a function of circular disaster region radius: a-b) link failures
for Euro28 and US26; c-d) node failures for Euro28 and US26; e-f) demand failures for Euro28 and US26.

tions that introduce new challenges in network planning and
dimensioning. Also, we have briefly discussed the potential
impact of disasters on optical network performance. To verify
the quality and performance of various protection methods
in EONs, we have considered a case study with realistic data
traffic models built on Cisco traffic predictions and two repre-
sentative network topologies.
The results clearly show that the EON concept significant-
ly outperforms conventional WDM networks in the context
of network resilience in cloud-ready and content-oriented
networks. For all analyzed performance metrics (CAPEX/
OPEX cost, power consumption, and spectrum usage), WDM
needs much more resources compared to EON. Regarding
the resource overhead related to the path protection provi-
sioning in EONs, the protected network is about 130 percent
more costly and power-demanding than the unprotected net-
work, wherein the additional spectrum usage strongly depends
on the applied protection method. In particular, there is a
need for up to 180 percent and only 80 percent more spectrum
resources, respectively, if DPP and SBPP protection schemes
are used. Besides, squeezed protection allows significant redu-
cuction of the need for additional resources, but at the cost of
protecting only a fraction of traffic. Eventually, in the analysis
of large-scale disasters, the DPP method with link-disjoint
paths provides good performance and protects most demands
even for relatively large disaster areas (circles with radius up
to 500 km).
Acknowledgments
The work of Roza Goscien, Miroslaw Klinkowski and Krzysz-
tof Walkowiak was supported by the Polish National Science
Centre (NCN) under Grant DEC-2012/07/B/ST7/01215. In
addition, the work of Miroslaw Klinkowski was supported in
part by the FP7 project IDEALIST (Grant Agreement no.
317999), while the work of Jacek Rak was supported in part by
Grant P0KL04.03.00-00-238/12. This research was supported
in part by PL-Grid infrastructure. The authors are grateful to
Wroclaw Networking and Supercomputing Center for granting
access to the computing infrastructure being the outcome of
the project no. P0IG.02.03.00-00-028/08 “PLATON - Science
Services Platform.”
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96
Biographies
RO ZA G o s c i e n received a B .Sc. degree in engineering in teleinformatics in
2 0 1 2 and an M .Sc. degree with distinction in 2 0 1 3 from W ro claw Univer-
sity of Technology, Poland. She was recognized as the best faculty graduate
by the Rector of W roclaw University of Technology. She is currently a Ph.D.
student at the same university. Her current research interests are primarily in
the areas of network modeling, dimensioning, and optimization with special
regard to elastic optical networks.
K RZYSZTOF W ALKOW IAK received his Ph.D. and D.Sc. (habilitation) degrees in
computer science from W roclaw University of Technology in 2 0 0 0 and 2 0 0 8 ,
respectively. Currently, he serves as an associate professor at the Department
of Systems and Computer Networks, W ro claw University of Technology. He
received the Best Paper A w ard at DrCN 2 0 0 9 and RNDM 2 0 1 5 , and the
Fabio Neri Best Paper Award 2 0 1 4 . He has published more than 2 00 scientif-
ic papers in international conferences and journals.
M lROSLAW K LINKOWSKI is an associate professor at the Department of Transmis-
sion and Optical Technologies at the National Institute of Telecommunications,
Poland. He received his Ph.D. degree (2008) from Universitat Politecnica de
Catalunya, Spain, and his D .Sc. (habilitation) degree (2013) from W a rsaw
University of Technology, Poland. He has co-authored several book chapters
and over 120 papers presented in leading journals and conference proceed-
ings. His research interests concentrate on algorithm design, modeling, and
optimization in communication networks.
J ACEK RAK (SM IEEE'13) is an assistant professor at Gdansk University of Tech-
nology (GUT). He received his Ph.D. degree from GUT in 2 0 0 9 . He has been
involved in numerous research projects related to network resilience, served as
a member of Steering Committees/TPCs of conferences, and as a Guest Editor
of journals. He is also Vice Chair of IFIP TC6 W G 6 .1 0 , and the founder and
General Chair of the International Workshop on Reliable Networks Design and
Modeling.
IEEE Network • November/December 2015