Traffic Grooming in Green Optical Networks

Compared to energy-awareness research in wireless and copper networks, less attention has been given to energy awareness in optical counterparts. In this paper, we introduce energy-aware traffic grooming problems for optical networks. We show that by looking further into the modular physical architecture of a node during request allocations, we can significantly reduce the number of active components and, hence, total energy consumption in the network, especially when traffic load is low. Since energy usage is an important element of operational expenditure (OPEX), this approach provides the financial motivation for service providers along with the desired environmental motivation. We present auxiliary graph based heuristics and justify our cases compared to traditional approaches with simulation results.