On the advantages of elastic optical networks for provisioning of cloud computing traffic

This article provides motivation for the elastic optical network (EON) approach, an efficient and cost-effective solution for provisioning of cloud computing traffic. As opposed to wavelength switched optical networks (WSONs), the capabilities of which are limited by the use of rigid frequency grids, EON architectures allow for both scalable bandwidth provisioning and flexible resource allocation. The deployment cost, energy consumption, and bandwidth usage for both EON and classical WSON transport networks are compared in pan-European and U.S. backbone networks for 2012-2020 using Cisco traffic predictions. Results show that the EON concept significantly outperforms WSON in all examined criteria, and the gap between the two architectures increases in subsequent years. Moreover, potential advantages of anycast routing in transport networks with data center traffic are demonstrated.