Datacenter-oriented elastic optical networks: Architecture, operation, and solutions

With the exponentially increasing Internet traffic and emergence of more versatile and heterogeneous applications, the design of datacenter networks (DCNs) is subject to unprecedented requirements for larger capacity and more flexible switching granularities. Envisioning Optical-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (O-OFDM) as a promising candidate for such a scenario, we motivate the use of O-OFDM as the underlying switching technology in order to provide sufficient switching capacity and elastic bandwidth allocation. For this purpose, this article reviews the recent progresses of DCN deployment and assesses the scenario where the O-OFDM transmission and switching technology is employed in the underlying transport plane. We discuss the key issues of the datacenter-oriented O-OFDM optical networks, and in particular, elaborate on a number of open issues and solutions including system interconnection architecture, routing and resource assignment, survivability, and energy-efficiency.