IET Communications

Research Article

ISSN 1751-8628
Fairness enhanced dynamic routing and Received on 11th August 2015
Revised on 22nd December 2015
spectrum allocation in elastic optical Accepted on 2nd February 2016
doi: 10.1049/iet-com.2015.0783
networks www.ietdl.org

Yu Xiong , Xue Fan, Shuming Liu

Key Laboratory of Optical Communication and Networks, Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications,
No. 2 Chong Wen Road Nan an District, Chongqing, Peoples Republic of China
E-mail: cqxiongyu@foxmail.com

Abstract: The finer spectrum granularity unit in elastic optical networks makes wider spectrum services more likely to be
restricted by the constraints of spectrum continuity and spectrum contiguity (2SC), leading to higher blocking probability
(BP). Obviously, it would deteriorate the fairness among multi-granularity services. Therefore, a fair dynamic routing and
spectrum allocation algorithm is proposed. By virtualising the network resources as a resource pool, a two-dimensional
rectangle packing model in combination with service holding-time is introduced to satisfy the 2SC constraints and to
optimise the allocation of the resource pool for dynamic multi-granularity services. Besides multi-granularity service
fairness is achieved by tackling heterogeneous-size services together. Simulation results show that the benefit in terms
of fairness can be reaped. Meanwhile, the authors also investigate the proposed algorithms impact on performance
metrics: namely, spectrum resource utilisation and BP. The results indicate that the proposed algorithm can achieve
lower BP and higher spectrum efficiency.

1 Introduction the arrangement of spectrum fragments. Stiakogiannakis et al. [6]

With the emerging of bandwidth intensive applications such as
high-denition video, cloud computing, information transmission
facilities based optical networks are experiencing more and more
pressure from the demand of high capacity. However, due to the
xed parameters including channel interval and signal rate the
resource allocation in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM)
optical networks is limited in a rigid, coarse and uniform
wavelength level (which is usually 50 GHz) leading to some
drawbacks such as low exibility and inefcient spectrum resource
utilisation. Moreover, it is hard to support applications beyond
100G. Future networks demanding of large capacity, high
bandwidth and good exibility cannot be satised. Therefore, the
orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based elastic
optical networks (EONs) is proposed in 2009 [1, 2]. The OFDM
technology slices the allocation unit in EONs to 6.25 or 12.5 GHz,
which indicates that the signal transport unit is the ner granularity
frequency slot (FS) instead of the coarse granularity wavelength.
The pattern that EONs assigning multi-granularity services enough
FSs matching their demands can effectively implement on-demand
allocation and resource virtualisation in the optical layer, which
greatly increases bandwidth utilisation as well as exibility and
enables the transmission speed to 1 Tb/s [3].
One of the key technologies ensuring high bandwidth transmission
in EONs is the routing and spectrum assignment (RSA). Different
from the routing and wavelength assignment in WDM optical
networks, the ne granularity of EONs poses new challenges, for
instance, how to satisfy the spectrum continuity and spectrum
contiguity (2SC) constraints and how to decrease the effect of
spectrum fragmentation on resource utilisation and fairness. In [4], a
distance-adaptive spectrum allocation algorithm is proposed to meet
the constraints of 2SC. This algorithm is proved to use the least
amount of resources and to attain high spectrum efciency.
However, the complexity is out of scope of this paper. Moreover, in
[5] the RSA problem is divided into two phases: routing and
modulation level phase and spectrum allocation phase, and they are
solved one-by-one. Besides a simulated annealing meta-heuristic is
proposed to optimise service ordering with the aims of low
complexity and high spectrum efciency, but this does not involve
and Castro, [7] present spectrum defragmentation approaches to
dynamically assign services tailored to their needs, which results in
less fragments and lower BP. Though these works solve the RSA
problem in different perspectives, none of them mentions the
fairness among multi-granularity services. The exibility and high
resource utilisation is at the cost of sacricing fairness. That is
because the characteristic of ne granularity may inherently block
larger capacity services because of 2SC. While such situation is not
obvious in WDM optical networks whose basic unit is the
wavelength. Hence, it is the ner unit FS that aggravates the gap
among multi-granularity services, and it is especially serious for
large capacity services. Therefore, it deteriorates fairness.
Therefore, the investigation in [8] tackles the unfair issue among
services with different path lengths, by dividing services with long
optical path into multiple short ones and routing these short ones
independently. However, this design works for the situation where
single path is blocked, but ignoring the fairness among
multi-granularity services. To improve multi-granularity service
fairness, Ma et al. [9] divide the whole spectrum into several equal
spectrum parts and alleviate the gap between the parts with the
largest and lowest BPs. Moreover, thus fairness is achieved.
However, they do not consider resource utilisation. This factor is
considered in [10] by the utility function to mitigate the BP
differences among multi-granularity services and to obtain the
trade-off between fairness and BP. However, it does not take
spectrum fragments into account. Bonani et al. [11] handle
fragments by transporting services demanding the same FSs in the
same spectrum area. As the multi-granularity services are assigned
with spectrum areas of the same size ignoring their differences in
capacity sizes, it may increase unfairness. Fairness is addressed in
[1214] by introducing trunk reservation (TR) policy. TR is a
common threshold of acceptance for all services to equalise
performance [12]. TR can perform well in multi-granularity service
fairness. Since fairness is in conict with spectrum utilisation, the
guarantee of fairness is at the cost of lower spectrum utilisation.
The algorithms aforementioned can solve fairness in some level.
However, they focus on current network state, lacked considering
the effect on the next moment by this move. Besides, most of
them are low in spectrum utilisation. To solve those issues, a

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novel algorithm called Fair Dynamic Routing and Spectrum Theorem 1: Multi-granularity service fairness performs better, when
Allocation (FDRSA) is devised to synthesise the two the BPs of different service groups are closer. The proof is as follows
network-states. First, the two-dimensional (2D) rectangle packing
model is introduced to satisfy the 2SC constraints. In this model,
the small rectangle cell (SRC) is composed of multi-granularity 
2
n
services. Moreover, network resources consisting of links and m=1 PGm
spectrum resources are the big rectangle pool (BRP), a pool to FImulti-granularity =
=1
n nm=1 PG2 m
contain small rectangle blocks, just like the resource pool. To t
in well with the dynamicity of service, services are arranged by  2

n n

their holding-time so that more available continuous FSs can be
PG m = n PG2 m
produced after the departure of services, thus service holding-time m=1 m=1
is treated as the metric in the RSA processing. Under such  2 
consumption, the actions done to the current network state can PG1 + + PGn = n PG2 1 + + PG2 n
have a good effect on both current and future network-states, so
the domino effect can be avoided. Besides, multi-granularity service  2
fairness is enhanced by packing heterogeneous-size services as a { PG1 + + PGn
group, thus the blocking level for all-size services is the same.
The rest of the paper is organised as follows. Section 2 presents = PG2 1 + + PG2 n + 2PG1 PG2 + + 2PGn 1 PGn
the way to measure fairness and several barriers in fullling  2 
fairness. The following sections are settlements to those barriers. [ PG1 + + PGn = n PG2 1 + + PG2 n
The barriers of the 2SC constraints and fragments are solved in
Section 3, where the 2D rectangle packing model along with PG2 1 + + PG2 n + 2PG1 PG2
service holding-time is applied. Section 4 provides a method to 
support multi-granularity service fairness. In Section 5, we + + 2PGn 1 PGn = n PG2 1 + + PG2 n
introduce the proposed FDRSA algorithm. Our performance
results follow in Section 6. Finally, Section 7 concludes the paper. 2PG1 PG2 + + 2PGn 1 PGn


= n 1 PG2 1 + + PG2 n
2 Fairness  2  2
PG1 PG2 + PG1 PG3
Fairness is a way to measure whether resources are distributed
 2
evenly to users [15]. The EONs allocate spectrum resources to
+ + PGn PGn 1 = 0
services by their needs, which aggravate the gap in BP among
heterogeneous-size services. Thus, the service fairness is
[PG1 = PG2 = = PGn
correspondingly affected. Here, the fairness is to tell whether the
BPs on services of different granularity are even.
A quantitative measure called fairness index (FI) is proposed in
[16] to evaluate the degree of fairness. On the basis of it, FI for From the above proof, the conclusion that when the BPs of each
multi-granularity services is proposed. By grouping services with group are equal, the best multi-granularity service fairness is
the same granularity, such fairness is dened as follows. achieved can be drawn.
From the above statements, we can conclude that the gaps among
Denition 1 (multi-granularity service fairness): Multi-granularity different groups should be minimised in order to achieve better
service fairness is to evaluate the degree of fairness among multi-granularity service fairness. However, whatever
heterogeneous-size services. Multi-granularity service fairness multi-granularity service fairness may be, the algorithm needs to
FImulti-granularity is shown as satisfy the 2SC constraints rst. Meanwhile, the frequent assigning

2 and tearing down of spectrum lead to spectrum fragments, which
n is one of the main causes in the deterioration of multi-granularity
m=1 PG m
FImulti-granularity =
n (1) service fairness. Thus, the 2D rectangle packing model is
n m=1 PG2 m introduced for the 2SC constraints, and service holding-time is
designed for dynamic services to settle the fragments problem.
where n denotes the total number of groups in the network. Finally, a multi-granularity service fairness model is proposed to
Moreover, pGm is the BP of group m, and is given by (2) minimise the gap in BP for multi-granularity services.


blocked
m
Gm
pGm = (2)
m Gm


Here, Gm means the mth group. Moreover, m blocked
Gm is the
number of the blocked services in group m, whereas m Gm is the
total number of services in group m.

The boundedness of multi-granularity service fairness is dened

in (3). Moreover, the larger FImulti-granularity is, the better fairness
it achieves. The best fairness could be attained when the
condition satises (4), which means the BPs among
different
groups are equal, where pGn is the BP of group n . However,
when the gaps in BP among different groups are greater, the worst
multi-granularity service fairness is

FImulti-granularity [ [0, 1] (3) Fig. 1 2D rectangle model

a Illustration of BRC
pG1 = pG2 = . . . = pGn (4) b Illustrations of PRC and SRC

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 3 Service holding-time-based path computation
In this section, a service holding-time-based path computation is
proposed to obtain the selected path from the alternative paths. A
2D rectangle packing model is proposed to satisfy the 2SC
constraints. That is because the vertical axis and the horizontal
axis in the resource pool can naturally satisfy the 2SC constraints.
Besides, in order to t in well with the dynamicity of services,
service holding-time is introduced. Finally, a holding-time-based
path selection (HBPS) policy is proposed.

3.1 2D rectangle packing

Fig. 2 Frequency gain
a Original state of PRC The 2D rectangle model is described as follows. Given a BRP with
b State of PRC after the departure of services nite height and width and a set of SRCs with arbitrary sizes, the

Fig. 3 Flowchart for HBPS policy

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goal is to maximise the number of SRCs in the BRP, and hence the
maximum utilisation rate of the BRP could be achieved. Similarly,
the BRP made up of different path rectangle pools (PRPs) can be
regarded as resource pool which is used for containing network
resources. In the traditional 2D rectangle model, SRCs are directly
packed in the BRP. Besides, the vertical axis and the horizontal
axis for SRCs are exible, which means the SRCs can be placed
anywhere in the BRP. While in the 2D rectangle model deployed
here, SRCs are packed in PRPs instead of the BRP. Just with that
reason, the vertical axis of PRP is path axis, thus it is xed. So
only the horizontal axis is arbitrary.
The forming of PRP is as follows. Once the paths for an SRC are
settled, the corresponding links of each service in the SRC are picked
out from the BRP to form the PRP, as shown in Fig. 1. As the SRC is
placed in the PRP, the PRP can naturally solve the 2SC constraints,
because the horizontal axis of PRP represents path, and once the
SRC is placed, the spectrum continuity can be satised. The
spectrum contiguity can be completed by allocating continuous
FSs along the vertical axis. In that way, the 2SC constraints in the
RSA process are settled.
The basic packing order in the 2D rectangle packing model is rst
angles, then links, nally centre. So in the RSA process, we should
follow that rule and try to rst allocate the lowest and the left-most
spectrum. However, only the horizontal axis is exible, we simplify
the rule to rst choose the lowest spectrum.
The 2SC constraints can be solved via the 2D rectangle packing
model, and the basic packing order can ensure the compactness of
the allocation. However, different from the traditional 2D rectangle
packing model where the SRC is given ahead, the pending
services in our model have arrived dynamically. Therefore, the
tradition method is not applicable any more, and we introduce
service holding-time to dynamically pack BRP with SRCs.
3.2 Service holding-time
The 2D rectangle packing model can well reect the 2SC constraints,
but how to obtain the selected paths for dynamic services still needs
further consideration. Thus, service holding-time is brought in.
Service holding-time refers to one services existing time in the
network. The fast development of path computation element and
generalised multi-protocol label switching increases network online
service ability, which enables the sensing of service holding-time at
Fig. 4 Flowchart for FDRSA algorithm
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the arrival of services [17]. Thus, information on the holding-time
of services can be used at the arrival of a service to determine the
service departure-time [18, 19]. By the arrival-time and service
holding-time, the departure-time of one service can be obtained, just
as shown in (5). To pack more dynamic services into the BRP,
assigning neighbour FSs to services with the closest departure-time
is a feasible solution. Therefore, more neighbour FSs can be utilised
and fewer fragments could be produced. Moreover, at the departure
of services, more continuous available FSs can be released.
The service departure-time can be calculated via service
holding-time as
tdeparture = tarrival + tholding (5)
where tdeparture, tarrival and tholding are one services departure-time,
arrival-time and holding-time, respectively.
After the calculation of service departure-time, the HBPS policy is
proposed to choose the selected path from the alternative paths.
3.3 HBPS policy
The fragmentation problem is an important issue in EONs.
Fragmentation will arise as a consequence of services ending and
leaving voids of unused capacity, which will lead to unfairness
[14]. To avoid fragments, we should minimise the voids.
Therefore, handling services whose departure-time are the closest
can lessen fragments. With the aim of less fragments, we introduce
service departure-time as the rst step to lessen the chance of
fragments. However, the problem arises, when more pre-existing
services share the same departure-time with the pending service.
Under that condition, the more spectrums these services could
release the better. That is because more available spectrum
creating more chances for services to occupy. Thus, the releasing
Fig. 5 Fair dynamic routing and spectrum allocation (FDRSA)
1015
Fig. 6 Illustration of the FDRSA
a BRC
bi Choice of spectrum for the pending service N9 under different situation
FSs become the second step. If step 2 cannot obtain the selected path,
frequency gain is utilised here to enhance fairness. Since larger
services are easier to be blocked than small services, the
coefcient along the vertical axis (path axis) is twice as that of
horizontal axis (spectrum axis). Therefore, it is used as step 3. To
make sure the selected path is unique, nally the path with the
lowest spectrum index is chosen as the selected path.
HBPS policy
Step 1: Select out pre-existing services owning the nearest
departure-time with the pending service. Then, we should check
whether there are enough FSs around them. If so, the selected path
and its corresponding spectrum are determined. This can be realised
preexisting pending
by (6), where tdeparture and tdeparture are the departure-time of
pre-existing service and pending service, respectively
gains along the horizontal axis and the vertical axis, respectively, as
shown in Fig. 2. Moreover, Fig. 2b is after the departure of services
in Fig. 2a, and the gain is 3 x + 4 2 y, and we set x = y = 1. The
gain is 11
maximise(x + 2y) (8)
The three steps based on service holding-time obtain the selected
path from the alternative paths, just as shown in Fig. 3. The
chosen of neighbour spectrum lessen fragments. Simultaneously,
the arrangement of handling services with the nearest
departure-time together offers spectrum reservations for more
pending services; therefore, the BP is decreased and the resource
utilisation is otherwise increased. However, the problem of
multi-granularity service fairness still needs further consideration.
 
 preexisting pending 
minimisetdeparture tdeparture  (6)
Step 2: If the selected path is still not unique, the path with the largest
continuous available
FSs at the departure of services will be chosen,
given by (7), where slotreleasing , slotunoccupied are the releasing FSs
and the unoccupied FSs at the departure of services

maximise slotreleasing + slotunoccupied , t = tleave
Step 3: If the selected path is still unavailable from the above two
steps, the frequency gain is introduced to evaluate the availability of

the FSs at the departure of services, given by (8), where x, y are the
1016
4 Multi-granularity service fairness model
Service holding-time avoids current actions affecting the
next-moment actions. However, compared with WDM optical
networks, the ne granularity and fragments deteriorate
multi-granularity service fairness. Thus, this section focuses on the
effort of improving multi-granularity service fairness. A fairness
(7) model is proposed to guarantee multi-granularity service fairness.
Let us consider a network with n group, and each group is services
with the same granularity, as shown in (9), where G1 is group 1
G = G1 , G2 , , Gn (9)
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Table 1 Departure-time for services N1N4 group to form SRC Bj, just as (12), where Snj means the jth
service in group n . When some services in some group do not
Service departure-time N1 N2 N3 N4
exist, we ll instead.
Fig. 3b t1 t1 t2 t3
By (9)(12), the SRCs are accomplished. The multi-granularity
Fig. 3d t1 t2 t1 t3 service fairness is guaranteed as follows. For each service in one
Fig. 3f t1 t2 t3 t1 SRC, each operates the RSA process separately, but when one of the
Fig. 3h t1 t1 t3 t2 services is blocked, all the other services are blocked in the SRC.
Under such condition, the multi-granularity service fairness is attained
by accepting or blocking services under the same congestion level.
From the above discussion, the fairness model can minimise the
Table 2 Departure-time for services N5N9
disparity among multi-granularity services in BP. Therefore,
Service departure-time N5 N6 N7 N8 N9 multi-granularity service fairness is achieved.

Fig. 3c t2 t2 t2 t3 t1
Fig. 3e t1 t3 t3 t3 t1 5 Routing and spectrum assignment
Fig. 3g t1 t2 t3 t2 t1
Fig. 3i t1 t1 t3 t2 t1
The basic idea of RSA is as follows. First, multi-granularity services
are packed into SRCs. The k-shortest-path (KSP) algorithm is used to
get the k alternative paths. Service holding-time with (6)(8) are used
For each group, we number services from 1 to j , dened as to get the selected path. Finally, the basic packing order of the 2D
 rectangle packing is mainly used to compactly allocate services.
Gm = Sm1 , Sm2 , , Smj (10) The description for FDRSA in details is as follows, and the
corresponding owchart is shown in Fig. 4.
where Smj is the j th service of group m.
To alleviate the unfairness among multi-granularity services, Step 1: Use (9)(12) to pack multi-granularity services into SRCs.
SRCs made of multi-granularity services are proposed, and can be Step 2: For each service in the SRC, use the KSP algorithm to attain
derived as the k alternative paths.
Step 3: For each service in the SRC, use (6)(8) to obtain the selected
 
path. If any service cannot nd its path, jump to step 5.
B = B1 , B2 , , Bj (11)
Step 4: If the selected path is still undetermined, try choosing the
 lowest spectrum according to the basic packing order of the 2D
Bj = S1j , S2j , , Snj (12) rectangle packing to obtain the selected path. If any services
cannot nd paths, jump to step 5, else jump to step 6.
Equation (11) means the network consisting of j SRCs, where Bj is Step 5: Block this SRC.
the jth SRC. Moreover, we categorise the jth service from each Step 6: End (see Fig. 5).

Fig. 7 Simulation results

a Network topology National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET)
b Network topology United States Network (USNET)

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 in Fig. 6g, the valid spectrum is at f = 2, when N5 and N9 left,
four FSs would be available. Judging from (8), the selected path is
C-F-G, and the feasible spectrum position is at f = 6 with the
reason that the choice of f = 6 releasing more completed FSs. In
Fig. 6h, the unoccupied spectrum positions are at f = 2 and 6. By
(6)(8), the feasible position is at f = 2. Moreover, in the same
way, we can conclude that the feasible position is at f = 1 in
Fig. 6i. Finally, C-B-G is selected, because its position is the
lowest. Other services are operating in the same way. However, if
any service cannot nd its selected path, the whole SRC is
blocked otherwise.

6 Simulation results

Simulations are carried out on NSFNET topology and USNET

topology depicted in Fig. 7. The whole spectrum is slotted into
350 FSs. Moreover, two EONs provisioning with the minimum FS
6.25 and 12.5 GHz are deployed. Services are uniformly
distributed between source and destination pairs. We use
(Microsoft Visual C) VC++ 6.0 as simulation software. Service
granularity is 25, 50, 100, 150 and 650 GHz [12]. Services
proportions are 1:1:1:1:1. The arrival of services follows a Poisson
process. Moreover, the holding-time obeys negative exponential

Fig. 8 Performance of the three algorithms in terms of BP

a Comparison of BP among different algorithms in NSFNET
b Comparison of BP among different algorithms in USNET

Now, let us consider a simple illustrative example in Fig. 6, a

network consisting of four links. Each link has eight FSs. There
are eight pre-existing services N1N8 and one pending SRC
containing a number of services, and we pick service N9 out to
describe this example. Moreover, other services in this SRC are
handled in the same way. Service N9 is in demand of 1FS. The
alternative paths for N9 are C-F-G and C-B-G. Departure-time is
shown in Tables 1 and 2, which is the service departure-time for
Figs. 6bi. Fig. 6a is the resource pool or the BRP. Figs. 6bh
account for the process of obtaining the selected path by (6)(8).
Fig. 6i shows the selection of the selected path according to the
basic packing order of the 2D rectangle packing. In Figs. 6b and c,
the valid spectrum is at f = 2, 4, 6. According to (6), the selected
path is C-F-G, and the suitable spectrum is at f = 2. That is
because services N1, N2 and N9 share the same departure-time in
Fig. 6b, while no services are leaving together with service N9 in
Fig. 6c. In Fig. 6d, the usable spectrum is at f = 2, 6, 8. Services
N1, N3 and N9 leave together. In Fig. 6e, the usable spectrum is
at f = 2, 4, 6. Services N5, N9 leave together. Therefore, using
(7), we calculate that 5, 7 FSs could be found, if service N9 is
placed at f = 2 and 6 along the vertical axis in Fig. 6d. In Fig. 6e,
if we allocate service N9 at f = 2, four FSs would be generated.
Thus, the selected path is C-F-G. The feasible spectrum position is Fig. 9 Performance of fairness of the three algorithms in USNET and
at f = 6. In Fig. 6f, the available FSs along the spectrum axis are at NSFNET
f = 2 and 6. N1, N4 and N9 are leaving together. Besides, any a Comparison of FI among different algorithms in NSFNET
position could release six FSs at the departure of services. While b Comparison of FI among different algorithms in USNET

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distribution. Two algorithms: the commonly used benchmark RSA
algorithm shortest-path routing and rst t assignment (SP + FF)
and the TR algorithm proposed in [13] with FF assignment (TR)
are in comparison with the proposed FDRSA algorithm.
The performance of the three algorithms in terms of BP is shown
in Fig. 8. From this gure, it is easy to see that the curves in both
gures follow the same trend that the BP increases with the
increasing of loads in both the topologies and the different
minimum granularities provisioning EONs. The results also
suggest that the FDRSA algorithm achieves the lowest BP among
the three algorithms. This can effectively demonstrate that the
introducing of holding-time can effectively reduce fragments, and
thus lower BP. By concerning fairness, the TR algorithm has
higher BP than SP + FF. This is attributed to the fact that fairness
is counterbalanced by the reduction of BP. To further explain, this
is because once the behaviour of unfairness is conrmed, the TR
policy would positively block some services. We can also know
that the network with ner spectrum granularity can achieve lower
BP, which may be because the ner spectrum granularity can be
better tailed to services. Thus, the results come closer with the
increasing in loads. The BPs of the three algorithms in the
USNET are lower than those in the NSFNET. The main reasons
are that rst the average node degree of USNET is higher than
NSFNET. Besides, the scalability which makes routing more
exible and full use of network resources is another issue.
Fig. 10 Spectrum utilisation ratio versus load
a Comparison of spectrum utilisation ratio among different algorithms in NSFNET
b Comparison of spectrum utilisation ratio among different algorithms in USNET
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Fig. 9 compares the performance of fairness of the three
algorithms in USNET and NSFNET. As the aforementioned
discussion, we can draw the conclusion that the nearer
FImulti-granularity is to 1, the better fairness is. Therefore, from both
Figs. 9a and b we can draw the conclusion that both the FDRSA
algorithm and the TR algorithm achieve the best performance in
fairness. This is due to the fact that both of the two algorithms
ensure BP parity among the multi-granularity services. By packing
multi-granularity services in one SRC, the same threshold is
set in FDRSA. Besides, the third step of the HBPS policy also
plays a role in achieving fairness. The differences of BPs in
multi-granularity services are controlled, and the fairness is
guaranteed in FDRSA. However, the SP + FF algorithm is the
worst in fairness. This can be explained as follows. Since the BPs
of larger services are inherently larger than that of small services,
the phenomenon of unfairness appears. Besides, the FI of
6.25 GHz provisioning EONs is less than that of 12.5 GHz
provisioning EONs. Moreover, such results are caused by the
effect of fragments. The similar trends are shown in both USNET
and NSFNET. It is interesting to nd that the fairness of SP + FF
algorithm in NSFNET is worst than that in USNET. We give the
following reason, with better exibility, less disparity in BP
among multi-granularity services, better fairness is achieved.
Fig. 10 plots the spectrum utilisation ratio versus load. We can get
the conclusion that the spectrum utilisation ratios of the three
algorithms increase along with the rising in loads in both USNET
and NSFNET. This is because the increasing in loads means more
services are established which improves the resource utilisation
ratio. However, when the network is near the saturation condition,
the increasing is slow but steady. Both Figs. 10a and b
demonstrate that the FDRSA algorithm outperforms another two
algorithms in spectrum utilisation ratio. Since the FDRSA
algorithm involves the consideration of holding-time and services
with the closest departure-time are assigned together, fragments
are lessened and more resources are into use. However, the TR
algorithm attains fairness at the expense of rejecting more services,
thus less resources are used. Moreover, we can know that our
algorithm performs better in ner granularity provisioning EONs
contributing to the consideration of service holding-time.
7 Conclusion
The emerging of EONs compensates the inexibility of WDM
optical networks, but besides the 2SC constraints added to the
RSA process, the spectrum fragments and the deterioration of
fairness are at the expense of such exibility. To solve the
above-mentioned problems, an algorithm named fair dynamic
routing and spectrum allocation is proposed. The 2D rectangle
packing model combined with service holding-time is designed to
solve the fragments and translates the 2SC constraints. The
presentation of the fairness model is to improve fairness in EONs.
Simulations show that the proposed algorithm can increase fairness
without sacricing BP, besides an increase in spectrum utilisation
is achieved.
8 Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (grant nos. 60972069, 61401052), the
Science and Technology Project of Chongqing Municipal
Education Commission (grant nos. KJ110531, KJ1400418) and
the Starting Foundation for Doctors of Chongqing University of
Posts and Telecommunications (grant no. A2015-09).
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IET Commun., 2016, Vol. 10, Iss. 9, pp. 10121020
& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2016