A Load Balancing and Time-Frequency Fragmentation-aware Algorithm for Elastic Optical Network

Elastic Optical Network (EON), which adopts a flexible grid, is a promising solution for next-generation optical networks. EONs face the problem of poor spectrum utilization due to the generation of spectrum fragmentation. In order to improve the performance of EONs, spectrum management is necessary. In this paper, a Load Balancing and Time-Frequency (LB-TF) fragmentation awareness algorithm is proposed. This algorithm performs spectrum allocation by comparing spectrum continuity and service duration. The simulation results show that, compared with the reference algorithms, the LB-TF algorithm can improve the spectrum utilization by 6.0% and reduce the request blocking rate by 37.8%. In different network models with different requests bandwidth distributions, the LB-TF algorithm performs well.