Memory-aware SLA-based mechanism for shared-mesh WDM networks

The paper presents a dynamic provisioning mechanism through which service providers can exploit the unused allowable down time of the connections to serve the additional upcoming requests. The algorithm work based on the holding time of the connections and the failure arrival rate over the selected primary or backup paths. The proposed mechanism in this paper routes the requests in a way that any service level agreement (SLA) violation is either avoided or minimized. To achieve this goal, the already established paths are flagged with a newly proposed path metric, path risk factor, to create a memory-aware mechanism of paths´ history showing the risk tolerance to SLA violation. This path attribute can be disseminated over the network as a metric of prospective connections. The algorithm takes advantage of the already established connections´ history to select the best path regarding the SLA violation with the lowest cost. Simulation results verify that the proposed mechanism has better performance in terms of the blocking rate, the availability satisfaction rate, and the resource utilization than existing algorithms. Performance evaluation is done over two different simulation environments, the network with high link failure arrival rate and the network with normal link failure arrival rate. In addition to the better performance over both network topologies, the algorithm provides more revenue for service providers compared to standard and existing algorithms.