Planning fixed to flexgrid gradual migration: drivers and open issues

• Published in: IEEE communications magazine Vol. 52; no. 1; pp. 70 - 76
• Main Authors: Ruiz, Marc, Velasco, Luis, Lord, Andrew, Fonseca, Daniel, Pioro, Michal, Wessaly, Roland, Fernandez-palacios, Juan P.
• Format: Magazine Article Publication
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.01.2014; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering; Elektroteknik och elektronik; Engineering and Technology; Enginyeria de la telecomunicació; Fibra òptica; Fibres òptiques; Flexgrid Gradual migration; Optical fiber networks; Optical fibers; Optical mixing; Strategic planning; Teknik; Telecommunication network management; Telecomunicació òptica; Àrees temàtiques de la UPC
• ISSN: 0163-6804; 1558-1896
• DOI: 10.1109/MCOM.2014.6710066

Flexgrid technology has recently been presented as the most promising option for upgrading the currently operating fixed grid optical networks and extending their capacity to be able to deal with the massive traffic volumes forecast for the next decade. Although the current traffic is successfully supported on fixed grid networks, flexgrid technology brings features that are not offered by the fixed grid networks, such as transporting optical connections with a capacity beyond 100 Gb/s and elasticity against time-varying traffic. In light of this, a gradual fixed grid to flexgrid migration is generally accepted in order to add these useful features to the network. In this article, we study the migration process where flexgrid is deployed in the network progressively, and review the main drivers and open issues induced by its deployment.