Design of Grouped Routing Entity (GRE)-based optical networks with 100% signal quality guarantee

In bandwidth abundant optical networks it is important to develop design strategies that are not only cost effective but also able to account for the inherent characteristics of the optical transmission medium responsible for the signal quality degradation. With this objective in mind, the paper proposes a design algorithm able to determine an appropriate placement of regenerators in Grouped Routing Entity (GRE)-based optical networks. The objective of the algorithm is to guarantee a certain signal quality level to all connections while minimizing the number of fibers and switching ports required in the network. The proposed design strategy relies on a physical-layer impairment model, specifically introduced in the paper for this purpose, able to estimate the signal quality of an optical path in a GRE-based optical network. Simulation results indicate that compared with a single layer optical path network the proposed design algorithm can reduce at least 87% of the switch ports while the increment in the number of fibers is lower than 10%.