Energy savings in dynamic and resilient optical networks based on traffic-aware strategies

An analysis of the energy savings is presented when taking into account a complete traffic model for a one-year time period. Daily and weekly traffic fluctuations as well as yearly traffic growth are considered when analyzing the power consumption. Low power mode in optoelectronic devices (sleep-mode and rate adaptive capabilities) is implemented within a traffic-aware networking approach. The impact of dedicated 1:1 protection in a dynamic network scenario is considered and a comparison is made with the unprotected case. A GMPLS control plane is implemented and used to re-configure the power-adaptive devices and connections. Results show that symbol-rate adaptation provides high savings for unprotected scenarios (37% energy savings w.r.t. unprotected Baseline), while for the protected scenarios better results are obtained for modulation format adaptation which includes sleep-mode (57.1% energy savings w.r.t. protected Baseline). Moreover, compared to the Baseline scenarios the Mixed adaptation, combining both symbol-rate and modulation format, is the most power-efficient strategy providing 39% energy savings for unprotected scenario and 70% energy savings for dedicated protection scenario.