SDN controllers - (Open Networking Part 3-1)

Hello Friends, today, let's review different SDN controllers available in the industry and a high-level view of their design. I have tried my best to interpret the features published in the public domain and in case your interpretation is different please feel free to leave a comment and I will revise the post. 

Let's get started.....

As summarized in my previous post many service providers are transforming their Infrastructure to multi-vendor solutions. This migration enables the need to thoroughly validate hardware interoperation and a new requirement to build multi-vendor and multi-domain control and management plane software.

RFC8453 provides a framework for Abstraction and Control of TE  Networks (ACTN) to support virtual network services and connectivity services

Generalized Multi-vendor, Multi-domain architecture

There are many controller solutions available in the market and this week my attempt is to provide a brief overview of controller solutions from Fujitsu, Infinera, and Sedona. 

Next week I will post details for NetFlex LightRiver, Cisco, and Juniper solutions.

Again my attempt is to summarize and provide a starting point and you can make use of the reference link provided to explore further. 

I will be thankful if you can share(as comments) anything interesting you find during your research to augment my learning. 

References:

Good Read - ACTN

Fujitsu Virtuora NC

Infinera Transcend Controller Solution

Sedona NetFusion

"Start from wherever you are and with whatever you’ve got" - Jim Rohn

Open Networking Optical- Part2 - OpenROADM

Welcome back! this post is part of an Open Networking blog series,  exploring different Open Networking architectures and their current state(trials, demos, and deployment). You can refer to my previous post for an overview of all the major industry initiatives.

Today, let's take a closer look into OpenROADM progress made so far. 

OpenROADM is a major initiative within the optical industry primarily driven by AT&T( a service provider) to build scalable, cost-effective, open, and flexible networks.

Primary Use-Case for OpenROADM Trials

AT&T along with Vendor partners completed its first field test in December 2016, summarized below. 

For 400GbE trials, AT&T announced 3 phases for the testing. 

Phase 1: Will use optical gear from Coriant to carry a true 400GbE service across a long-distance span of AT&T global backbone from New York to Washington, demonstrating that AT&T’s nationwide software-centric network is 400G-ready.

Phase 2: Will trial a 400GbE on a single 400G wavelength across AT&T’s OpenROADM metro network. We’ll use optical gear from Ciena, a developer of next-generation coherent optical solutions, to show the network is ready to transport 400GbE to serve our customers in a metro area.

Phase 3: Will test the first instance of a 400GbE open router platform. The “disaggregated router” platform uses merchant silicon and open-source software – another industry first.

Finally, in November 2019 AT&T announced the completion of trials and enabled the first 400GbE production traffic on its network. Interestingly the traffic was terminated on another white box router. 

Definitely, a lot is accomplished between the OpenROADM MSA agreement and finally 400GbE production traffic using OpenROADM Interface definition. Definitely, the solution has transitioned from concept to production, and programmable, open optical networks should soon become a norm. 

Feel free to leave a comment, you can find below some important reference resources for additional information. See you soon, have a good day!

References:

AT&T Launches Industry-First 400-Gigabit

AT&T Phased Trials

AT&T Phase-1 Trial

400G Ciena-AT&T OpenROADM

AT&T ECOMP Architecture

" Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune"

- Jim Rohn

Open Networking Optical - Part1

Major goals for Open Networking have been to take the best components, hardware or software or both and build a best-in-class network architecture and network. Hardware and Software disaggregation is playing a key role in this journey and in the year 2021 accelerated deployment of such architectures is on the horizon.

Many of the below initiatives impact Optical networking as well and this blog is one of many in this series that will follow. The Optical Networking Digital symposium was organized last week(Feb 16 & 18)  and some of the keynotes touched upon building programmable disaggregated networks.

       Major Open Networking project

There are overlaps and contradictions in some of these initiatives and in the next post, my attempt will be to summarize how much work has been done on some of these projects. You can find references to all these projects below and feel free to share your thoughts and comments. Have a good day!

Reference Links:

OpenROADM

TIP-OOPT

ODTN

ONOS

OpenDaylight

ONAP

OpenConfig

"Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live  " - Jim Rohn