Systems and methods for managing excess optical capacity and margin in optical networks

摘要

A method, a network element, and a network include determining excess margin relative to margin needed to insure performance at a nominal guaranteed rate associated with a flexible optical modem configured to communicate over an optical link; causing the flexible optical modem to consume most or all of the excess margin, wherein the capacity increased above the nominal guaranteed rate includes excess capacity; and mapping the excess capacity to one or more logical interfaces for use by a management system, management plane, and/or control plane. The logical interfaces can advantageously be used by the management system, management plane, and/or control plane as one of restoration bandwidth or short-lived bandwidth-on-demand (BOD) connections, such as sub-network connections (SNCs) or label switched paths (LSPs).

主权项

1. A method, comprising:
determining excess margin relative to margin needed to insure performance at a nominal guaranteed rate associated with a flexible optical modem configured to communicate over an optical link, wherein the flexible optical modem forms a variable capacity channel, and wherein the optical link comprises a fixed capacity channel adjacent to the variable capacity channel; causing the flexible optical modem to consume most or all of the excess margin, wherein capacity increased above the nominal guaranteed rate in the flexible optical modem comprises excess capacity; mapping the excess capacity to one or more logical interfaces for use by at least one of a management system, a management plane, and a control plane; determining excess margin for the fixed capacity channel that is unusable since the fixed capacity channel cannot modify its rate; performing at least one of increasing performance of the variable capacity channel and decreasing performance of the fixed capacity channel based on the excess margin for the fixed capacity channel; and increasing a bit-rate of the variable capacity channel based on margin gained by at least one of the increased performance of the variable capacity channel and the decreased performance of the fixed capacity channel.