Future mobile traffic growth will require 5G cellular networks to densify the deployment of small cell base stations (BS). As it is not feasible to form a backhaul (BH) by wiring all BSs to the core network, directional mmWave links can be an attractive solution to form BH links, due to their large available capacity. When small cells are powered on/off or traffic demands change, the BH may require reconfiguration, leading to topology and traffic routing changes. Ideally, such reconfiguration should be seamless and should not impact existing traffic. However, when using highly directional BH antennas which can be dynamically rotated to form new links, this can become time- consuming, requiring the coordination of BH interface movements, link establishment and traffic routing. In this paper, we propose greedy-based heuristic algorithms to solve the BH reconfiguration problem in real-time. We numerically compare the proposed algorithms with the optimal solution obtained by solving a mixed integer linear program (MILP) for smaller instances, and with a sub- optimal reduced MILP for larger instances. The obtained results indicate that the greedy-based algorithms achieve good quality solutions with significantly decreased execution time.

Traffic growth forecasts announce a dramatic future for core networks, struggling to keep the pace of traffic augmentation. Internet traffic growth primarily stems from the proliferation of cloud services and the massive amounts of data distributed by the content delivery networks (CDNs) hosting these services. In this paper, we investigate the evolution of core traffic in the presence of growing CDNs. Expanding the capacities of existing data centers (DCs) directly translates the forecasted compound-annual-growth-rate (CAGR) of user traffic to the CAGR of carried core link traffic. On the other hand, expanding CDNs by building new geographically dispersed DCs can significantly reduce the predicted core traffic growth rates by placing content closer to the users. However, reducing DC-to-user traffic by building new DCs comes at a trade-off with increasing inter-DC content synchronization traffic. Thus, the resulting overall core traffic growth will depend on the types of services supported and their associated synchronization requirements. In this paper, we present a long-term evolution study to assess the implications of different CDN expansion strategies on core network traffic growth considering a mix of services in proportions and growth rates corresponding to well-known traffic forecasts. Our simulations indicate that CDNs may have significant incentive to build more DCs, depending on the service types they offer, and that current alarming traffic predictions may be somewhat overestimated in core networks in the presence of expanding CDNs.

ABSTRACT Transparent optical networks can be highly vulnerable to various physical‐layer attacks, such as high‐power jamming, which can cause widespread service disruption and even service denial. The propagation of such attacks can be thwarted with wavelength‐selective attenuators, referred to as power equalizers, installed at the network nodes. However, employing all nodes with power equalization functionality can lead to substantial costs. In previous work, we proposed a heuristic approach for sparse power equalization placement to limit jamming attack propagation cost‐effectively. The approach provides suboptimal solutions quickly; however, it does not guarantee optimality. Because placement of such power equalization is a long‐term planning problem affecting the capital expenditures of the network operator, solution quality is more critical than execution time. Thus, in this paper, we propose an integer linear programming formulation for the problem to guarantee optimality in terms of the number of power equalizers placed. Evaluation results show that our proposed integer linear programming formulation is able to solve moderately sized problems in reasonable time. These results also support the efficiency of our previously proposed heuristic by confirming its ability to find optimal solutions for the cases tested. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper investigates offline virtual topology design in transparent optical networks under a multihour traffic demand. The main problem variant addressed here designs a reconfigurable virtual topology that evolves over time to more efficiently utilize network resources (the MH-VTD-R problem). The case of designing a static non-reconfigurable virtual topology that can accommodate the time-varying traffic (the MH-VTD-NR problem) is also considered. The objectives are to minimize: 1) the number of transceivers, which make up for the main network cost; and 2) the frequency of reconfiguration (for MH-VTD-R), which incurs additional overhead and potential service disruption. We formulate this multiobjective problem as an exact mixed integer linear program (MILP). Due to its high complexity, we propose a very efficient heuristic algorithm called Greedy Approach with Reconfiguration Flattening (GARF). GARF not only solves both (non-)reconfigurable problem variants, but it allows for tuning of the relative importance of the two objectives. Exhaustive experiments on real and synthetic traffic and comparison to previous proposals and bounds reveal the merits of GARF with respect to both solution quality and execution time. Furthermore, the obtained results indicate that the maximal transceiver cost savings achieved by the fully reconfigurable case may not be enough to justify the associated increase in reconfiguration cost. However, results show that an advantageous tradeoff between transceiver cost savings and reconfiguration cost can be achieved by a allowing a small number of virtual topology reconfigurations over time.

Security issues and attack management in transparent wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical networks have become of prime importance to network operators due to the high data rates involved and the vulnerabilities associated with transparency. Deliberate physical-layer attacks, such as high-powered jamming, can seriously degrade network performance and must be dealt with efficiently. While most approaches are focused on the developing fast detection and reaction mechanisms triggered in case of an attack, we propose a novel approach to help deal with these issues in the network planning and provisioning process as a prevention mechanism. Namely, we propose to route lightpaths in such a way as to minimize the potential damage caused by various physical-layer attacks. We present a new objective criterion for the routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) problem, which we call the maximum Lightpath Attack Radius(maxLAR), and formulate the routing subproblem as an integer linear program (ILP). We test it on small networks to get an insight into its complexity and compare it to a formulation that minimizes congestion. Results indicate that our formulation achieves significantly better results for the maxLAR while obtaining near-optimal or optimal congestion in all cases. For larger networks, we propose a tabu search algorithm for attack-aware lightpath routing, in combination with an existing graph-coloring algorithm for wavelength assignment. Testing and comparing with existing approaches from literature indicate its superiority with respect to themaxLARand average lightpath load, albeit at the expense of somewhat higher congestion. However, this is justified with the obtained improvement in network security.

This paper investigates offline planning and scheduling in transparent optical networks for a given periodic traffic demand. The main objective is to minimize the number of transceivers needed which make up for the main network cost. We call this problem “Scheduled Virtual Topology Design” and consi

This paper addresses the problem of routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) of scheduled lightpath demands (SLDs) in wavelength routed optical networks with no wavelength converters. The objective is to minimize the number of wavelengths used. This problem has been shown to be NP-complete so heuristic algorithms have been developed to solve it suboptimally. Suggested is a tabu search algorithm along with two simple and fast greedy algorithms for the RWA SLD problem. We compare the proposed algorithms with an existing tabu search algorithm for the same problem and with lower bounds derived in this paper. Results indicate that the suggested algorithms not only yield solutions superior in quality to those obtained by the existing algorithm, but have drastically shorter execution times