Design of Translucent Optical Networks: Partitioning and Restoration

We discuss the problem of designing translucent optical networks composed of restorable, transparent subnetworks interconnected via transponders. We develop an integer linear programming (ILP) formulation for partitioning an optical network topology into subnetworks, where the subnetworks are determined subject to the constraints that each subnetwork satisfies size limitations, and it is two-connected. A greedy heuristic partitioning algorithm is proposed for planar network topologies. We use section restoration for translucent networks where failed connections are rerouted within the subnetwork which contains the failed link. The network design problem of determining working and restoration capacities with section restoration is formulated as an ILP problem. Numerical results show that fiber costs with section restoration are close to those with path restoration for mesh topologies used in this study. It is also shown that the number of transponders with the translucent network architecture is substantially reduced compared to opaque networks.