| Summary: | We consider a space-division multiplexing elastic optical network (SDM-EON) that supports super-channels (SChs). A Sch comprises a set of contiguous frequency slots on multiple cores in a multi-core fiber. The problem of finding a lightpath using SChs involves routing, modulation, spectrum and core assignment (RMSCA). To minimize the request blocking probability (RBP), two critical issues must be addressed. First, routing and modulation assignment (RMA) should not cause hotspots, or overutilized links. Second, spectrum and core assignment (SCA) should aim at minimizing fragmentation, or small frequency slot blocks that can hardly be utilized by future requests. In this paper, a pre-computation method is first proposed for better load balancing in RMA. Then an efficient fragmentation-aware SCA is proposed based on a new fragmentation metric that measures both the spectral and spatial fragmentation. With the enhanced RMA and SCA, a joint load-balanced and fragmentation-aware algorithm called LBFA is designed to solve the RMSCA problem. As compared with the existing algorithms, simulation results show that our LBFA provides significant reduction in RBP.
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