Sleeping Link Selection for Energy-Efficient GMPLS Networks

To improve the energy efficiency of optical networks, strategies and technologies should aim at ensuring a (low) power consumption proportional to the network utilization. To achieve such aim, this paper proposes the support of sleep mode in the links of a wavelength-switched optical network with generalized multiprotocol label switching control plane. A centralized strategy (to be performed at the Path Computation Element-PCE) and a distributed strategy are proposed to dynamically select the link to be set to sleep. Performance of the proposed strategies is evaluated for different parameter settings. Results show a significant reduction of the overall power drained by the optical devices with both strategies and a contained impact on lightpath blocking probability. The tradeoff between blocking and energy saving of the two strategies is discussed to derive the most energy-efficient and energy-proportional strategy, with negligible impact on the quality of service.