Electricity cost and emissions reduction in optical networks

摘要

The goal of energy cost-aware Routing and Wavelength Assignment (RWA) is to minimize the total electricity expenditure in an optical network. While effective, just aiming to reduce the electricity consumed does not necessarily mitigate the environmental impact. A new approach is required to reduce the emissions produced as a by-product of RWA. We present a method for doing so through the use of Mixed Integer Linear Programming, which can find the optimal solution that minimizes the electricity cost of RWA for a static set of requests. This objective is quantitatively compared to alternative goals, including directly minimizing the emissions produced, reducing the length of established paths, and balancing reductions in both emissions and electricity cost simultaneously.