An Energy Efficiency Optimization Method in
Bandwidth Constrained IP over WDM Networks
Bin Chen1, Zheng-Ming Jiang1, Robert K. F. Teng1,2, Xiao-Hui Lin1, MingJun Dai1 and Hui Wang1
1. Shenzhen Key Lab of Advanced Communications and Information Processing, College of Information Engineering,
Shenzhen University, China
2. Electrical Engineering Department, California State University, Long Beach
bchen@szu.edu.cn
Abstract—Traffic grooming technique is one of the important
candidates to save energy for networks. In order to minimize the
energy consumption using Integer Linear Program (ILP) or
Mixed Integer Linear Program (MILP), the assumption has to be
made that all the connection requests are accepted in the IP over
WDM network. However, a connection request may be blocked
in a real network. In this paper, a bi-objective ILP is proposed
for minimizing the energy consumption in a blocking IP over
WDM network. It maximizes the throughput for a given network
first, and then minimizes the energy consumption for the
obtained maximized throughput. The simulation results show
that the bi-objective method can save half of the energy
consumed in the single-objective method if only the throughput is
maximized.
Keywords- IP over WDM network; ILP; Traffic grooming; Bi-
objective
I. INTRODUCTION
In an energy-constrained world, the internet cannot continue
to grow if the energy consumption is not reined in[1]. In order
to cope with the rapid increase of energy consumption in
networks, a number of research efforts have been done. Traffic
grooming technique is one of the important candidates to save
energy for networks. It can efficiently exploit the resource in
the WDM optical layer, which makes it consume much less
energy.
Traffic grooming problem in optical circuit switching
networks has been extensively studied. Basic ILP (Integer
Linear Programming) formulations are provided in [2], in
which the throughput is maximized in a given IP over WDM
network. Heuristic algorithms are also proposed to solve large
scale network traffic grooming problems for maximizing the
network throughput or minimizing the network blocking ratio
[2, 3]. Recently, there has been a growing interest in achieving
energy-efficient traffic grooming. The authors of [4], based on
lightpath bypass concept, developed a mixed integer linear
programming (MILP) optimization model and two heuristics to
minimize the energy consumption. In [5], a comparison
between four optical core network architectures was made by
given different integer linear programming (ILP) formulation.
It is shown that optical technology can save power significantly.
However, all of the MILP or ILP methods for energy
optimization only do single objective optimization and assume
that the network can serve all the traffic demands.
978-1-4799-0434-1/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE
Energy-efficient traffic grooming in a blocking IP over
WDM network is still an open problem. In this paper, a bi-
objective traffic grooming method, which jointly considers
maximizing throughput and minimizing the energy
consumption in IP over WDM networks, has been studied. The
detail is presented as below.
II. THE ENERGY CONSUMPTION MODEL OF IP OVER WDM
NETWORK
Figure 1. IP over WDM networks
An IP over WDM network is shown in Fig.1. Each node
contains an Optical Cross Connect (OXC) and an IP core router.
The IP core router can aggregate the IP data traffic from low-
end access routers, as well as route the bypass traffic. The
OXCs are interconnected with fibers, and each fiber contains
several wavelengths.
To evaluate traffic grooming policies, only processing
performed in the intermediate nodes is considered. It includes
the energy consumption of IP routers, transponders and optical
switches. They are denoted by PI , PT and PO respectively. The
assumptions of energy consumption with constant values are
made as follows.
1. The energy consumption at the local ports of the router
that are connected to the access networks are not
considered because the amount of traffic added/dropped at
these ports is independent of any traffic grooming method.
2. As the EDFAs are already deployed in the network, their
energy consumption can be considered constant in all
cases.
3. For a given traffic distribution, the energy consumption
for the traffic processing in source and destination nodes
is constant and is not related to any traffic grooming
method.
ICICS 2013
 For example, there are two IP connection requests in Fig.1.
One is from node A to node B with the bandwidth request of r1, λ sdx , t The tth OC-x connection request from node s to d. If it is
the other is from A to D with r2. Two lightpaths are established accepted, λ sdx , t =1; otherwiseˈ λ sdx , t =0.
in the network using 4 transponders and 4 optcial switches at
the source and destination nodes. Lightpath 1 is from node A to U ijsd, x,t if λ sdx , t uses a lightpath from node i to j , Uijsd, x,t = 1 ;
node B, and lightpath 2 is from B to D switched optically at C.
One optical switch is used. The first connection request uses otherwise, Uijsd, x,t = 0 .
the lightpath 1 to reach the destination B. The second request is
electronically switched between the two lightpaths at node B Constraints˖
and reaches the destination D. Therefore, the energy -- On lightpath route variables
consumption of the network can be written as 4 PT + r2ȉPI
+5PO.  v ijw m =i

Fmijn, w - ij , w
Fnm =  − v ij m = j
w
(1)
III. MATHEMATICAL (ILP) FORMULATION FOR THE BI- n ∈V : m ≠ n n ∈V : m ≠ n  0 otherw ise
OBJECTIVE OPTIMIZATION PROBLEM 
In a capacity limited network, connection requests could be ∀i , j , m, w: i ≠ j
blocked if the network bandwidth is not enough. In order to
optimize the energy efficiency in a traffic grooming network,
i∈V j∈V :i ≠ j
ij , w
Fmn ≤ Fmnw ∀m, n, w : m ≠ n (2)
its throughput has to be also optimized at the same time. This
makes it become a bi-objective optimization (BOO) problem.
Considering routing of all connection requests as the main goal,
v
w
w
ij = vij ∀i , j (3)

the priori method [6] is adopted in the bi-objective integer Constraint (1) ensures the flow conservation in the optical layer.
linear programming (ILP) problem. In phase I, the single Constraint (2) ensures that wavelength w on one fiber link (m,n)
objective problem has been solved to optimize the throughput can only support at most one lightpath. In constraint (3),
of the network. The maximum throughput of the network is lightpaths from node i to j are composed of lightpaths on
denoted by T. In phase II, the energy efficiency of the network different wavelengths.
has been optimized under the throughput constraint of T.
In the IP over WDM network, the node index is used -- On traffic variables
according to following rules: m and n represent the ends of a
fiber link; i and j represent the ends of a lightpath; s and d
Ui
sd , t
id , x = λ sdx ,t ∀ s , d x ∈ {1, 3,12, 48} t ∈ [1, Λ x , sd ] (4)
represent the ends of a low speed connection request in the IP
layer. To describe this model, notations for the parameters and
U j
sd , t
sj , x = λ sdx ,t ∀ s , d x ∈ {1, 3,12, 48} t ∈ [1, Λ x , sd ] (5)
variables are used as follows.
Given Parameters:
U sd ,t
ik , x = U kjsd, x,t
i j (6)
G(V, E) physical topology consisting of node set Yƒand ∀s, d , k : k ≠ s, d x ∈{1,3,12, 48} t ∈ [1, Λ x , sd ]
link set H.
Fmn if a fiber connect node m to n, Fmn= 1; otherwiseFmn= 0. U i
sd , t
is , x = 0 ∀ s , d x ∈ {1, 3,12, 48} t ∈ [1, Λ x , sd ] (7)
Fmwn if Fm n = 1, there is wavelength w on fiber (m,n) and
Fmwn = 1 ; otherwise, Fmn
w
= 0.
U j
sd , t
dj , x = 0 ∀ s , d x ∈ {1, 3,12, 48} t ∈ [1, Λ x , sd ] (8)

N number of wavelengths per fiber. It is assumed that each x ×U sd , t

ij , x ≤ vij × C ∀ i , j U sdx ,t ∈ {0,1} (9)
fiber carry the same number of wavelengths. x ,t s , d
C capacity of each wavelength channel. Equation (4)-(9) are responsible for the routing of low-speed IP
‫ٿ‬ traffic matrix set. ‫ٿ‬ൌ ሼ‫ٿ‬x}, where x can be any allowed traffic requests on the virtual topology which consists of
low-speed streams. In this work, xԖ{1,2,12,48}. ‫ٿ‬x,sd is lightpaths. They take into account the fact that the accepted
the number of OC- x connection requests from node s to d. traffic cannot exceed the overall capacity provided by the
established lightpaths.
Decision variables:
vij number of lightpaths from node i to j˗ Bi-objective optimization method
w The throughput is optimized first with objective function
vij number of lightpaths from node i to j using wavelength
(10).
w;
F ij , w
if a lightpath from node i to j traverses fiber link (m,n) maximize x ⋅ λsdx,t (10)
mn
x ,t , s , d
ij , w ij , w
using wavelength w, Fmn = 1; otherwise, Fmn =0. Hereˈ the maximum throughput of the network is denoted by
T. Then, objective function (11) is applied to minimize the
energy consumption of the network.
  ij , w 
Node 2 0 4 0 8 4 0
minimize 2 PT ⋅ vij + PO vi , j + Fmn 
Node 3
Node 4
8
4
0
8
8
0
0
8
8
0
0
4
i, j i, j  w m,n  Node 5 4 4 8 8 8 0

 
x ⋅  U ijsd, x,t − λsdx ,t 
TABLE III. TRAFFIC MATRIX OF OC-12 CONNECTION REQUESTS
+ PI (11)
x , s , d ,t  i, j  Node 0
Node0
0
Node1
24
Node2
8
Node3
4
Node4
20
Node5
16
Node 1 32 0 32 24 28 32
Node 2 4 12 0 0 8 28
Objective function (11) is subject to not only equation ˄1˅to Node 3 20 28 12 0 8 24
(9) but also equation (12), which limits the minimum accepted Node 4 24 16 20 0 0 8
traffic demand equal to T. Node 5 20 16 16 8 0 0
In this paper, the energy consumption value of IP router is
x ⋅ λsdx ,t ≥ T (12) assumed to be 14.5W per Gbit/s; each WDM transponder is
34.5W; and each optical switch is 1.5W per wavelength [5].
x , s , d ,t
 
The objective of equation (11) is to minimize the total energy The commercial ILP solver, “ CPLEX” , is used to optimize the
consumption in both IP and optical layers. The first term network.
computes the total energy consumption of transponders in the As discussed in III, the network throughput is optimized
optical layers. The second term evaluates the energy according to the objective function (10) first. Table IV shows
consumption of optical switches in the optical layer. In the the network throughput optimized based on different number of
  wavelengths per fiber. It is shown that the network can accept
third term, x ⋅  U sd ,t
ij , x − λsdx ,t  presents the amount of almost all the traffic demand when N = 3, and all the traffic
x , s , d ,t  i, j  demand when N > 3.
traffic that is electrically switched between lightpaths.
Therefore, this term evaluates the energy consumption of Subjected to the throughput value in table IV, the energy
electrically switched traffic in the intermediate nodes. consumption in the network is optimized with the objective
function (11). For the comparison, the function (11) is also
used to calculate the energy consumption of the network in the
IV. NUMERICAL RESULTS first phase. This method is named as single objective
This section presents numerical results of energy-efficient optimization (SOO) method.
traffic grooming in a blocking IP over WDM network. The
physical topology is the six node network as shown in Fig.2. TABLE IV. THROUGHPUT (TOTAL TRAFFIC DEMAND IS OC-3952)
Every link in the network has two fibers, transmitting in
opposite directions, where each fiber has N wavelengths. The N 1 2 3 4 5 6
bandwidth of each wavelength is assumed to be OC-192. T (OC-1) 2345 3316 3875 3952 3952 3952

1 2 Fig 3 shows the energy consumption of the network vs.

0 5
3 4
Figure 2. A six node optical network
Three bandwidth granularities are considered in this work.
They are OC-1 (51.84Mbps), OC-3 (155.52Mbps) and OC-12
(622.08Mbps). These three randomly generated traffic matrices
are shown in Tables I–III, and the total traffic demand turns out
different number of wavelength per fiber. It is shown that the
network under BOO method use slight less energy than that
under SOO method when N = 1. As the value of N increases,
energy consumption starts to increase for both methods, but
SOO increases much faster and maintains at high level. When
N is larger than 3, the energy consumption for both methods
begins to saturate. It is surprising that BOO method consumes
only half of energy as in SOO method with the same
throughput achievement.
4500

to be the equivalent of OC-3952.

Energy consumption(w)

4000

3500
TABLE I. TRAFFIC MATRIX OF OC-1 CONNECTION REQUESTS SOO
3000
BOO
Node0 Node1 Node2 Node3 Node4 Node5
Node 0 0 20 16 44 48 36 2500
Node 1 0 0 34 20 64 24
Node 2 56 48 0 36 24 64 2000
Node 3 16 44 60 0 4 20
Node 4 40 8 12 12 0 34 1500

Node 5 8 4 32 60 52 0
1000
1 2 3 4 5 6

TABLE II. TRAFFIC MATRIX OF OC-3 CONNECTION REQUESTS Number of wavelengths per fiber (N)
Node0 Node1 Node2 Node3 Node4 Node5 Figure 3. Total power consumption values for increasing number of
Node 0 0 4 4 4 0 0 wavelengths
Node 1 4 0 4 4 0 8
 Fig. 4 also shows that the amount of electrically switched
traffic varies as the number of wavelengths per fiber increases.
It is observed that the amount of electrically switched traffic in
BOO method is only half of that in SOO method when N is
equal to 1. As N increases, the amount of electrically switched
traffic in SOO method increases significantly until N is equal to
3. In comparison to the SOO method, the amount of electrically
switched traffic in the BOO method increases slowerly. As the
network capacity is equal to or bigger than the traffic demand
according to table IV, the amount of electrically switched
traffic under BOO method decreases to a constant value. It
shows that BOO method can use lightpath more efficiently in
terms of saving electrically switching energy.
2400
The amount of electrically
2200
switched traffic (0C-1)
2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0 overlay model,” Photonic Network Communicationsˈvol. 17, no. 1,
1 2 3 4
Number of wavelengths per fiber (N)
Figure 4. The amount of electrically switched traffic for increasing number of
wavelengths
IV CONCLUSION
In this paper, a bi-objective ILP optimization model is
proposed to optimize the throughput and energy consumption
simultaneously for IP over WDM networks. The simulation
results show that it can significantly save the network energy
without sacrifice the network throughput. For future work, it is
planned to develop heuristic methods for larger networks to
obtain power efficient grooming solutions, which is the
subject of ongoing study.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research was jointly supported by research grant from
Natural Science Foundation of China under project numbers
NSFC61301182 and NSFC61171071, 973 Program under the
project number 2013CB336700, and grants from Foundation of
Shenzhen City under project numbers JC201005280404A,
JC201005250035A, JC201005250047A, JC201005280556A,
JCYJ20120613115037732, and ZDSY20120612094614154.
REFERENCES
[1] Tucker, Rodney S. "Green optical communications—Part II: Energy
limitations in networks." IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum
SOO Electronics, vol. 17, no.2, 2011, pp. 261-274.
BOO [2] K. Zhu and B. Mukherjee, “Traffic grooming in an optical WDM mesh
network,” IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun., vol. 20, no. 1, Jan. 2002,
pp.122–133.
[3] Bin Chen, Sanjay Kumar Bose, Wen-De Zhong and Hui Wang, “A new
lightpath establishing method for dynamic traffic grooming under the
5 6
Feb 2009, pp. 11-20
[4] G. Shen and S. Tucker. "Energy-minimized design for IP over WDM
networks." Journal of Optical Communications and Networking, vol.1,
no.1, 2009, pp. 176-186.
[5] Musumeci, Francesco, Massimo Tornatore, and Achille Pattavina. "A
power consumption analysis for IP-over-WDM core network
architectures." Journal of Optical Communications and Networking,
vol. 4, no.2, 2012, pp. 108-117.
[6] Hwang, Ching Lai, and Abu Syed Md Masud. “Multiple objective
decision making-methods and applications.”Vol. 164. Berlin: Springer-
Verlag, 1979.