Multi-path Resource Allocation for Confidential Services Based on Network Coding and Fragmentation Awareness in EONs

LIU Huanlin; AN Dongxin; CHEN Yong; CHEN Haonan; MA Bing; ZOU Jiachen

doi:10.11999/JEIT251222

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LIU Huanlin, AN Dongxin, CHEN Yong, CHEN Haonan, MA Bing, ZOU Jiachen. Multi-path Resource Allocation for Confidential Services Based on Network Coding and Fragmentation Awareness in EONs[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology. doi: 10.11999/JEIT251222

Citation:

LIU Huanlin, AN Dongxin, CHEN Yong, CHEN Haonan, MA Bing, ZOU Jiachen. Multi-path Resource Allocation for Confidential Services Based on Network Coding and Fragmentation Awareness in EONs[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology. doi: 10.11999/JEIT251222

Citation:

LIU Huanlin, AN Dongxin, CHEN Yong, CHEN Haonan, MA Bing, ZOU Jiachen. Multi-path Resource Allocation for Confidential Services Based on Network Coding and Fragmentation Awareness in EONs[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology. doi: 10.11999/JEIT251222

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Multi-path Resource Allocation for Confidential Services Based on Network Coding and Fragmentation Awareness in EONs

doi: 10.11999/JEIT251222 cstr: 32379.14.JEIT251222

1.
School of communications and information engineering, Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Chongqing 400065, China
2.
Intelligent Manufacturing College, Chongqing Institute of Engineering, Chongqing 400056, China

Funds: The National Natural Science Foundation of China (51977021), 2025 Scientific Research Fund for High-level Talents by Chongqing Institute of Engineering(2025gcky01)

Received Date: 2025-11-16
Accepted Date: 2026-02-05
Rev Recd Date: 2026-02-05

Available Online: 2026-02-16

Abstract

Abstract

Objective Each fiber in Elastic Optical Networks (EONs) provides enormous bandwidth capacity and carries a large volume of services and data. If any element in EONs is eavesdropped on or attacked, even for a short period, a large amount of data may be leaked or lost, which significantly reduces network performance. Moreover, confidential services are increasingly sensitive to data leakage and loss during transmission. Network attacks may therefore compromise a large number of confidential services. Network Coding (NC) combines data from different services using the XOR operation and transmits the coded data through EONs. Decoding is then performed at the receiver to recover the original information, providing a potential method to mitigate data eavesdropping during transmission. However, NC requires encryption constraints in EONs. Specifically, the routing and Frequency Slot (FS) allocation of other services must overlap with those of the confidential service to be encrypted. Therefore, routing and spectrum allocation for confidential services should consider both NC constraints and the efficiency of resource allocation. Methods A Multi-path Resource Allocation based on Network Coding and Fragmentation Awareness (MRA-NCFA) method is proposed to support secure and reliable transmission of confidential services under eavesdropping attacks. First, the proposed method applies NC to encrypt service data and adopts multi-path protection to improve transmission reliability. Second, in the routing stage, different strategies are designed for confidential and non-confidential services. For non-confidential services, the objective is to balance network load and improve resource utilization. A path weight function based on path load is designed. This function considers path hop count, the maximum idle spectrum block on the path, and the required FS of the service. The path with the largest function value is selected as the transmission path. For confidential services, routing selection focuses on preventing information leakage while considering path resource availability. Therefore, a path cost function based on eavesdropping probability is designed, and a routing strategy that considers this probability is adopted. Finally, different resource allocation strategies are applied. For non-confidential services, the objective is to maximize spectrum efficiency. Spectrum fragmentation should be minimized to maintain resource continuity and consistency. Therefore, a fragmentation-aware spectrum allocation strategy is designed. A fragmentation measurement formula evaluates the effect of service allocation on link resources. For confidential services, encryption constraints and FS matching must be satisfied. Therefore, a spectrum allocation strategy based on FS and fragmentation sensing is designed. This strategy considers both the effect of spectrum fragments and the effect of established service resources, which improves transmission security for confidential services. Results and Discussions The proposed MRA-NCFA algorithm achieves the lowest service blocking probability (Fig. 2). During routing selection, both confidential and non-confidential services consider path resource conditions. During resource allocation, fragmentation effects are also considered, which preserves idle resources for subsequent services as much as possible. In addition, confidential services adopt a multi-path transmission method. Large services can be divided into multiple sub-services, which improves spectrum resource utilization. As the number of services increases, the spectrum utilization of the MRA-NCFA algorithm improves significantly. This improvement results from the multi-path transmission mechanism, which divides large services into smaller ones and allows efficient use of small spectrum fragments. In addition, both confidential and non-confidential services consider path resource quantity during routing and prefer paths with lower spectrum consumption. During resource allocation, fragmentation effects are considered to avoid generating new fragments, which improves spectrum utilization (Fig. 3). As the number of services increases, the proposed MRA-NCFA algorithm shows the slowest and smallest increase in spectrum fragmentation ratio compared with the other two algorithms. This result occurs because the algorithm combines multi-path transmission with fragmentation-aware resource allocation, which improves the utilization of small spectrum fragments and reduces fragmentation in EONs. Moreover, both confidential and non-confidential services consider fragmentation effects during resource allocation and apply strategies to reduce fragmentation. Therefore, the proposed algorithm performs better than the Survivable Multipath Fragmentation-Sensitive Fragmentation-Aware Routing and Spectrum Assignment (SM-FSFA-RSA) algorithm and the Network Coding-based Routing and Spectrum Allocation (NC-RSA) algorithm (Fig. 4). Conclusions This study examines resource allocation for services that require protection against eavesdropping attacks in elastic optical networks. The objective is to satisfy the security requirements of confidential services and reduce spectrum fragmentation. The proposed MRA-NCFA algorithm applies NC to encrypt confidential services and adopts multi-path protection to improve transmission reliability. For non-confidential services, a path weight function based on path resources is designed for routing selection, and fragmentation-aware spectrum metrics are used for resource allocation. For confidential services, a path cost function that considers both path resources and eavesdropping probability is designed for routing selection. A bandwidth segmentation strategy based on eavesdropping probability supports multi-path transmission, and an FS and fragmentation sensing function based on encryption constraints is used for spectrum allocation. These mechanisms improve both reliability and security for confidential services. As the number of security-sensitive services on the Internet increases, the proposed MRA-NCFA algorithm can effectively reduce traffic blocking probability and improve spectrum resource utilization.
- Elastic Optical Networks (EONs),
- Resource allocation,
- Network coding,
- Reliable transmission,
- Spectrum utilization

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References(18)

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