An energy-aware dynamic RWA framework for next-generation wavelength-routed networks

Power demand in networking equipment is expected to become a main limiting factor and hence a fundamental challenge to ensure bandwidth scaling in the next generation Internet. Environmental effects of human activities, such as CO2 emissions and the consequent global warming have risen as one of the major issue for the ICT sector and for the society. Therefore, it is not surprising that telecom operators are devoting much of their efforts to the reduction of energy consumption and of the related CO2 emissions of their network infrastructures. In this work, we present a novel integrated routing and wavelength assignment framework that, while addressing the traditional network management objectives, introduces energy-awareness in its decision process to contain the power consumption of the underlying network infrastructure and make use of green energy sources wherever possible. This approach results in direct power, cost and CO2 emissions savings in the short term, as demonstrated by our extensive simulation studies.