A method for provisioning time-varying traffic demands in an optical transport software-defined network, the method comprising: pre-provisioning an amount of bandwidth for best effort traffic; characterized by the following steps: iteratively applying, using a processor, an iterative simulated annealing-based traffic provisioning procedure to determine candidate bandwidths for the best effort traffic in a set of iterations; and selecting a particular one of the candidate bandwidths for the best effort traffic that has a corresponding blocking value lower than a given blocking requirement β and that requires a minimum amount of spectrum as compared to other ones of the candidate bandwidths for the best effort traffic, wherein said iteratively applying step includes: varying the amount of bandwidth for best effort traffic in each of the iterations to determine the candidate bandwidths for the best effort traffic; and varying an amount of shared bandwidth between neighboring channels, out of the amount of bandwidth for best effort traffic, in each of the iterations, to further determine the candidate bandwidths for the best effort traffic. pre-provisioning an amount of bandwidth for best effort traffic; characterized by the following steps: iteratively applying, using a processor, an iterative simulated annealing-based traffic provisioning procedure to determine candidate bandwidths for the best effort traffic in a set of iterations; and selecting a particular one of the candidate bandwidths for the best effort traffic that has a corresponding blocking value lower than a given blocking requirement β and that requires a minimum amount of spectrum as compared to other ones of the candidate bandwidths for the best effort traffic, wherein said iteratively applying step includes: varying the amount of bandwidth for best effort traffic in each of the iterations to determine the candidate bandwidths for the best effort traffic; and varying an amount of shared bandwidth between neighboring channels, out of the amount of bandwidth for best effort traffic, in each of the iterations, to further determine the candidate bandwidths for the best effort traffic. iteratively applying, using a processor, an iterative simulated annealing-based traffic provisioning procedure to determine candidate bandwidths for the best effort traffic in a set of iterations; and selecting a particular one of the candidate bandwidths for the best effort traffic that has a corresponding blocking value lower than a given blocking requirement β and that requires a minimum amount of spectrum as compared to other ones of the candidate bandwidths for the best effort traffic, wherein said iteratively applying step includes: varying the amount of bandwidth for best effort traffic in each of the iterations to determine the candidate bandwidths for the best effort traffic; and varying an amount of shared bandwidth between neighboring channels, out of the amount of bandwidth for best effort traffic, in each of the iterations, to further determine the candidate bandwidths for the best effort traffic. varying the amount of bandwidth for best effort traffic in each of the iterations to determine the candidate bandwidths for the best effort traffic; and varying an amount of shared bandwidth between neighboring channels, out of the amount of bandwidth for best effort traffic, in each of the iterations, to further determine the candidate bandwidths for the best effort traffic.