Abstract: Network virtualization is a key enabling technology for “Infrastructure as a Service” provisioning, increasing the flexibility and cost savings offered to customers. By extending the concept of server virtualization to the network infrastructure, the allocation of different, independent virtual networks over a single physical network is carried out on demand. A fundamental challenge in network virtualization systems is to choose which physical nodes and links to use for hosting virtual networks in the physical infrastructure, known as the “virtual network allocation” problem. All virtual network allocation proposals on elastic optical networks assume a centralized operation, deploying a single node with access to the network state global information and assigning resources accordingly. However, such configuration might exhibit the inherent problems of centralized systems: survivability and scalability. In this paper, we present a distributed protocol for resource discovery, mapping, and allocation of network virtualization systems. The distributed protocol is generic enough as to be used with different substrate networks. However, in this paper, it has been adapted to work over an elastic optical network infrastructure, where further considerations regarding the spectrum continuity and contiguity constraints must also be taken into account. The distributed protocol is based on the concept of alliances: upon the arrival of a virtual network request, agents located in the physical network nodes compete to form the first alliance able to host the virtual network. Because the first alliances to be formed are also the ones composed by nearby nodes, a good network resource usage is achieved. The feasibility of the distributed protocol was studied by evaluating its ability to successfully establish virtual networks within acceptable time and with low bandwidth consumption from the coordination messages.

Abstract: Multi-band elastic optical networks are a promising alternative to meet the bandwidth demand of the ever-growing Internet traffic. In this letter, we propose a family of band allocation algorithms for multi-band elastic optical networks. Employing simulation, we evaluate the blocking performance of 3 algorithms of such a family and compare their performance with the only heuristic proposed to date. Results show that the three new algorithms outperform the previous proposal, with up to one order of magnitude improvement. We expect these results to help advance the area of dynamic resource allocation in multi-band elastic optical networks.

Abstract: Crowdcoding is a programming model that outsources a software project implementation to the crowd. As educators, we think that crowdcoding could be leveraged as part of the learning path of engineering students from a computer programming introductory course to solve local community problems. The benefits are twofold: on the one hand the students practice the concepts learned in class and, on the other hand, they participate in real-life problems. Nevertheless, several challenges arise when developing a crowdcoding platform, the first one being how to check the correctness of student's code without giving an extra burden to the professors in the course. To overcome this issue, we propose a novel system that does not resort to expert review; neither requires knowing the right answers beforehand. The proposed scheme automatically clusters the student's codes based solely on the output they produce. Our initial results show that the largest cluster contains the same codes selected as correct by the automated and human testing, as long as some conditions apply.

Abstract: We propose a novel algorithm to solve the Routing and Spectrum Allocation (RSA) problem in dynamic flexible grid optical networks. Unlike most previous proposals, the algorithm solves the R and SA problems jointly by exhaustively searching the solution space and taking the network state into account. As a result, the shortest possible path with enough spectrum availability is allocated to establish the connections. Simulation results show that, in terms of blocking ratio, our proposal significantly outperforms previously proposed algorithms. In some cases, the performance is better by more than one order of magnitude.

Abstract: This paper studies the physical layer's impact on the blocking probability and energy consumption of wide-area dynamic elastic optical networks (EONs). For this purpose, we consider five network configurations, each named with a network configuration identifier (NCI) from 1 to 5, for which the Routing, Modulation Level, and Spectrum Assignment (RMLSA) problem is solved. NCI 1-4 are transparent configurations based on all-EDFA, hybrid Raman/EDFA amplifiers (with different Raman gain ratio Gamma(R)), all-DFRA, and alternating span configuration (EDFA and DFRA). NCI 5 is a translucent configuration based on all-EDFA and 3R regenerators. We model the physical layer for every network configuration to determine the maximum achievable reach of optical signals. Employing simulation, we calculate the blocking probability and the energy consumption of the different network configurations. In terms of blocking, our results show that NCI 2 and 3 offer the lowest blocking probability, with at least 1 and 3 orders of magnitude of difference with respect to NCI 1 and 5 at high and low traffic loads, respectively. In terms of energy consumption, the best performing alternatives are the ones with the worst blocking (NCI 1), while NCI 3 exhibits the highest energy consumption with NCI Gamma(R) = 0.75 following closely. This situation highlights a clear trade-off between blocking performance and energy cost that must be considered when designing a dynamic EON. Thus, we identify NCI 2 using Gamma(R) = 0.25 as a promising alternative to reduce the blocking probability significantly in wide-area dynamic EONs without a prohibitive increase in energy consumption.

Abstract: Segment routing (SR) has been recently proposed as an alternative traffic engineering (TE) technology enabling relevant simplifications in control plane operations. In the literature, preliminary investigations on SR have focused on label encoding algorithms and experimental assessments, without carefully addressing some key aspects of SR in terms of the overall network TE performance. In this study, ILP models and heuristics are proposed and successfully utilized to assess the TE performance of SR-based packet networks. Results show that the default SR behavior of exploiting equal cost multiple paths (ECMP) may lead to several drawbacks, including higher network resource utilization with respect to cases where ECMP is avoided. Moreover, results show that, by properly performing segment list computations, it is possible to achieve very effective TE solutions by just using a very limited number of stacked labels, thus successfully exploiting the benefits of the SR technology. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract: Availability, defined as the fraction of time a network service is operative, is a key network service parameter. Dedicated protection increases availability but also the cost. Shared protection instead decreases the cost, but also the availability. In this article, we formulate and solve an integer linear programming (ILP) model for the problem of minimizing the backup resources required by a shared-protected static optical network whilst guaranteeing an availability target per connection. The main research challenge is dealing with the nonlinear expression for the availability constraint. Taking the working/backup routes and the availability requirements as input data, the ILP model identifies the set of connections sharing backup resources in any given network link. We also propose a greedy heuristic to solve large instances in much shorter time than the ILP model with low levels of relative error (2.49% average error in the instances studied) and modify the ILP model to evaluate the impact of wavelength conversion. Results show that considering availability requirements can lead up to 56.4% higher backup resource requirements than not considering them at all, highlighting the importance of availability requirements in budget estimation. (C) 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.