Power Consumption Reduction through Elastic Data Rate Adaptation in Survivable Multi-Layer Optical Networks

Network survivability requires the overprovisioning of backup resources in order to protect active traffic against any failure scenario. These additional resources, however, can remain unused most of the time while the network is not in failure, thus inducing high power consumption wastage if fully powered on. In this letter, we highlight the power consumption wastage of additional resources for survivability in IP/Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) over Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) multi-layer optical networks. We assume MPLS protection switching as the failure recovery mechanism in the network, a solution interesting for network operators to ensure fast recovery, as well as fine recovery treatment per Label Switched Path (LSP). Next, we quantitatively show how elastic optical technologies can effectively reduce such power consumption by dynamically adjusting the data rate of the transponders to the carried amount of traffic.