Impact of multi-port card diversity constraints in mesh optical networks

We model and measure the impact of multi-port cards and circuit-pack diversity constraints on the routing of protected lightpaths in optical networks and the resulting network capacity. We describe an offline routing and channel assignment algorithm combined with a multi-port card configuration algorithm, and experiments with these algorithms on various network designs. We show in particular that the impact is negligible, even in the case of shared-mesh protection architectures protecting against single multi-port card failures.