Patent ID: 8737836
Filing Date: 2014-05-27
Classification: H04J,H04Q

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for setting a lightpath in an optical network, the apparatus comprising: a processor to: create an auxiliary graph representing connection relations between nodes on a plurality of lightpaths in the optical network using a plurality of edges each connecting a pair of nodes on the plurality of lightpaths, the plurality of lightpaths including first and second one or more lightpaths, the first one or more lightpaths indicating lightpaths that exist in the optical network, the second one or more lightpaths indicating candidate lightpaths that are to be set to accommodate traffic that is newly generated for the optical network, each of the plurality of edges being assigned a weight value indicating a magnitude of increase in power consumption of network devices that are allocated to a lightpath in association with the each of the plurality of edges, and obtain, for start and end nodes in the optical network, a minimum weight path that has a path weight value minimum among paths each being a continuous sequence of edges that starts from the start node and reaches the end node, the path weight value being a total sum of weight values assigned to the continuous sequence of edges; and a memory to store information on the auxiliary graph, wherein the auxiliary graph is configured to include: an existing lightpath layer representing connection relations between nodes on the first one or more lightpaths, and one or more new lightpath candidate layers representing connection relations between nodes on the second one or more lightpaths; in each of the one or more new lightpath candidate layers, in-node and out-node are created in association with each of physical nodes existing on the first one or more lightpaths; presence or absence of an edge connecting the in-node and out-node indicates respectively an usable state or non-usable state of an optical regenerator that is allocated in the optical network in association with the edge; and a weight value corresponding to a power consumption of the optical regenerator is assigned to the edge connecting the in-node and out-node when the optical regenerator is in the usable state for the edge connecting the in-node and out-node.