Isolation and resource efficiency of virtual optical networks

Virtualization of optical networking infrastructure is considered a fundamental technology in the future Internet. A key principle is that virtual networks are isolated to coexist on a shared physical substrate without interference. Although a very attractive proposition for virtual network operators and users, in this paper we demonstrate that realizing complete isolation by partitioning resources is wasteful. Therefore, we propose to group virtual network requests in clusters: within a cluster, bandwidth can be shared, whereas different cluster are properly isolated. Results indicate that intelligent isolation and design of virtual networks can lead to substantial savings of optical network resources compared to a fully isolated approach. Finally, we demonstrate the trade-off between network resource utilization and control plane scalability.