p-Cycles as Their Own m-Cycles for Fault Detection and Localization in Elastic Optical Networks

In the new generation, the requirement of transmission of information is an unavoidable need for an exponentially growing traffic demand which is provided by elastic optical networks. A small disruption in these networks interrupts an enormous amount of transferring of data among common as well as prime users. Network survivability has, therefore, become a necessity for uninterrupted network services. In order to achieve the network survivability, preconfigured protection cycle (p-cycle) structures due to their fast restoration speed as well as the capacity efficiency are utilized with additional resources to cater the backup protection. p-Cycles protect span, with the presumption of having the knowledge of failed span in real time. In case of failed span is not known the fault detection and localization is required before providing protection which is done by monitoring cycles (m-cycles). It is investigated that p-cycle structures which are used for protection can also be made able to function as m-cycles for fault detection and localization. An Integer Linear Programming (ILP) model is developed to minimize total spare capacity considering p-cycles also performing the function of m-cycles. Numerical results reveal that there is no or fewer extra cost required in case of combined p-cycles with m-cycles compared to pure p-cycles. The reason for no extra cost in combined p-cycles with m-cycles is that here some p-cycles are performing the dual role of protection as well as detection and localization of failed span of the network.