Constraint-based Design of Optical Transmission Systems

The last decade has witnessed wide scale deployment of optical networks to support the growing data traffic. This success can be traced back to advances in optical transmission systems such as DWDM, Raman amplification, etc., which allow a single fiber to carry several wavelengths very far, while sharing expensive equipment. However, these cutting edge technologies require careful placement of amplifiers and other network elements to ensure error-free propagation of the signal and to minimize costs. In practice, it is common to use a set of constraints to ensure valid configurations for deployment. It is non trivial to identify the optimal configuration under all but the simplest constraints. In this paper, we consider a set of constraints with varying flexibilities and present algorithms for efficiently computing the cost-optimal configuration under them. We also present experimental and theoretical results to evaluate the various constraints and algorithms.