Soft Failure Localization in Elastic Optical Networks

Soft failure localization to early detect service level agreement violations is of paramount importance in elastic optical networks (EONs), while it allows anticipating possible hard failure events. Nowadays, effective and automated solutions for soft failure localization during lightpaths’ commissioning testing and operation are still missing. In this paper, we focus on presenting soft failure localization algorithms based on two different active monitoring techniques. First, the Testing optIcal Switching at connection SetUp timE (TISSUE) algorithm is proposed to localize soft failures during commissioning testing phase by elaborating the estimated bit-error rate (BER) values provided by low-cost optical testing channel (OTC) modules. Second, the FailurE causE Localization for optIcal NetworkinG (FEELING) algorithm is proposed to localize failures during lightpath operation using cost-effective optical spectrum analyzers (OSAs) widely deployed in network nodes. Results are presented to validate both algorithms in the event of several soft failures affecting lasers and filters.