Blocking performance of metropolitan optical networks equipped with low complexity integrated OTN/WDM switches

The introduction of optical transport network (OTN) switching technology enables an efficient wavelength bandwidth utilization and reduces the number of wavelengths, leading to reduced network costs. It has been shown that the use of integrated OTN/WDM switch architecture is cost effective because it reduces the number of short-reach client interfaces. The OTN/WDM also reduces the rack space and the power consumption compared to an architecture that uses a reconfigurable optical adddrop multiplexer and a separate standalone OTN switch or one that uses back-to-back muxponder connections to perform manual grooming. We propose a low complexity OTN/WDM switch and show by simulation that its use in ring networks lightly impacts the network blocking performance with no degradation if ODU-0 traffic is low. © 2014 IEEE.