New Horizons in Optical Networking with Elastic Spectrum Allocation and Parallel Transmission

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The need for optical parallelization, where multiple optical channels are used in parallel by means of Spatial Division Multiplexing (SDM), is driven by the imminent capacity limit of optical fibers. This has gainedsignificant attention recently as it has been shown that without parallelization,the future requirement of about 20b/s/Hz spectral efficiency will bebeyond the Shannon limit, and thus unachievable with the current technologies.Consequently, the high-speed Ethernet systems have already resorted to parallelization in 40/100~Gigabit Ethernet (40/100GE) standards. Therein, the recently proposed elastic opticalnetworks based on elastic spectrum allocation and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technologyhave emerged as a potentially transformative solution. This is due to its fundamentalcapability to actually slice or parallelize the optical spectrum into asequence of frequency slots and modulate signals on frequency slots in formof sub-carriers that can match parallel end-system streams.To deliver on the true potential of this rapid trend, a three-year researchprogram is proposed including three main research thrusts, namely, (i)Architectural Design - focusing on addressing architectural challenges in networks deploying parallel transmissionalong with the network migration from fixed to flexible spectrum allocation, towards ascalable capacity increase beyond the 100~Gb/s serial transmission rates, (ii) Modeling and Algorithmic Design - focusing on modeling of optical parallel transmission, including parallel routing, flexible assignment of advanced modulation formats, aswell as taking advantage of flexible optical spectrum allocation, and,(iii) Network Coded Parallel Transmission - applying network coding to paralleltransmission, with the goal of scalable system design as well as to investigate whether network coding can contribute to fault-tolerant and reliable high-speed optical system transmission.To test the proposed concept on its validity and usability, we plan to useanalysis, simulations, as well as emulations. In its entirety, the proposed research program provides a unique platform forfundamental research across a diverse spectrum of formal sciences (e.g.,information theory, fiber transmission, network modeling, and algorithms), aswell as computer engineering (e.g., network and protocol architecture, parallel computing).