Scalability Analysis of Spectrally-Spatially Flexible Optical Networks with Back-to-Back Regeneration

In this paper, we consider spectrally-spatially flexible optical networks (SS-FONs) that combine the concept of space division multiplexing (SDM) and flexible-grid spectrally-flexible (elastic) optical networks (EONs). We assume that SS-FON uses spectral super-channel transmission, in which flexible signal regeneration is realized with transceivers operating in back-to-back (B2B) configurations. We present a detailed scalability analysis of SS-FONs based on bundles of single-mode fibers (SMFs) considering various B2B regeneration options in a dynamic traffic scenario. In the experiments run on two representative network topologies, we assume different number of fibers per link and different number of transceivers available in the network. The main conclusion is that the applied B2B regeneration scenario has a big impact on the network performance, namely, the fully flexible regeneration allows to serve the highest traffic volumes and provides the best scalability with increasing number of utilized fibers.