DICONET NPOT: An impairments aware tool for planning and managing dynamic optical networks

The impact of physical layer impairments in the planning and operation of all-optical (and translucent) networks is the consideration of the DICONET project. The impairment-aware network planning and operation tool (NPOT) is the main outcome of the DICONET project, and is explained in detail in this paper. We describe the key building blocks of NPOT, consisting of the network description repositories, the physical layer performance evaluator, the impairment-aware routing and wavelength assignment (IA-RWA) engines, the component placement modules, the failure handling and the integration of NPOT in the control plane. Also, we present several experimental results for NPOT, evaluating the performance of its IA-RWA engines.