Elastic optical network virtualization

由于其无与伦比的远距离高速传输数据的能力，光网络作为主要的互联网基板基础设施被部署在世界各地。为了应对互联网流量以每年40%的速度增长，光网络正在摆脱将光纤频谱划分为等间距通道网格的传统模式。在最近提出的弹性光网络(EON)中，可以分配任意数量的较小的频率时隙来满足业务需求。这样，EON可以灵活地适应新的传输技术，这些技术可以弹性地调整传输参数，如波特率或调制格式。随着这种增强的弹性，物理网络资源的虚拟化在电基层发挥了重要作用之后，现在预计也将渗透到光域。这将实现新的商业模式，传统网络运营商被两个独立的实体取代：基础设施提供商和服务提供商，前者管理光纤基础设施，后者管理他们通过其向客户提供端到端服务的虚拟网络(VNS)。在EON上提供VN是本研究方案的重点。EON中的可调参数数量非常大，而其全部复杂性的VN供应问题尚未解决。在本项目中，我们重点关注对EON虚拟化至关重要的四个方面，i)可伸缩性，ii)故障恢复能力，iii)延迟保证，iv)VN重新优化。与我们的工业合作伙伴华为合作，在这些研究途径上的进展将对未来EON的设计原则产生持久的影响，并使加拿大保持在光网络行业的领先地位。

Thanks to their unmatched ability to transmit data at high speed over long distances, optical networks are deployed worldwide as the main Internet substrate infrastructure. To cope with the growth of Internet traffic at a rate of 40% annually, optical networks are moving away from the traditional paradigm where fiber spectrum was divided into a grid of equally-spaced channels. In the recently-proposed Elastic Optical Network (EON), an arbitrary number of smaller frequency slots can be assigned to serve traffic demands. This way, EON can flexibly accommodate novel transmission technologies that can elastically tune transmission parameters as baud rate or modulation format. With such enhanced elasticity, virtualization of physical network resources, after having played an important role in the electrical-substrate layer, is now expected to also penetrate the optical domain. This will enable new business models where the traditional network operator is substituted by two independent entities: infrastructure providers, who manage the optical infrastructure, and service providers, who manage virtual networks (VNs) over which they offer end-to-end services to customers. VN provisioning over an EON is the focus of this research proposal. The amount of tunable parameters in an EON is very large and the VN-provisioning problem in its full complexity has not yet been addressed. In this project, we focus on four aspects that are of central importance to EON virtualization, i) scalability, ii) failure resilience, iii) latency guarantees, iv) VN re-optimization. Advances in these research avenues in collaboration with our industrial partner Huawei will have a lasting impact on the design principles of future EONs and maintain Canada in the forefront of optical-network industry.