Traffic-Aware OTN-over-WDM Optimization in 5G Networks

5G networks are expected to support a diverse set of new applications/services in addition to existing applications/services from previous generations (2G/3G/4G). Optical Transport Networks (OTN) are being deployed as one attractive supporting technology for 5G networks at the transport level, particularly for next generation transport networks featuring large-granule broadband service transmissions. However, adopting and deploying OTNs in 5G networks comes with its own set of challenges. Thus, for carrier networks based on optical paths to become more scalable, dynamic, and manageable, there is a need to account for incoming traffic characteristics. To that end, this work formulates the problem of traffic-aware OTN-over-WDM optimization in the context of 5G. More specifically, it studies the impact of the different 5G traffic types and environments on the cost at both the OTN and WDM layers. Simulation results using different network topologies show the higher cost associated with more demanding traffic types and the variation in aggregate costs for different environments/scenarios. This includes a 2x increase in the aggregate network cost per layer and a 1.2x increase in average network cost per demand per layer and average network cost per demand per demand type between the different topologies. Additionally, results show that the optimization model outperforms a recent previous work by almost a factor of 2.