CaON white paper CaON cluster meeting

1. CaON white paperCaON cluster meeting 13 February 2012

2. Index 1. Introduction 2. Justification/Rationale 3. Technologies enabling the CaON reference model 3.1. Optical network IT convergence 3.2. Optical network virtualization 3.3. Cross-layer considerations 4. CaON Physical technologies in support of FI services 4.1. Core 4.2. Metro 4.3. Flexible and Elastic Core/Metro optical Networks 4.4. Access 4.5. Access/metro and in-building/home networks 5. CaON Control and Management Plane Technologies in Support of Future Internet Services 5.1. Control plane evolution 5.2. Management plane evolution: From rigidness to programmable management 5.3. Evolution in Optical Networks towards cognitive and self-managed networks and its impact on control and management planes 6. Energy efficiency and Green networking 7. Standardisation 7.1. Optical data plane technology 7.2. Optical control plane 7.3. IT and network integration

3. Introduction/Rationale I • It takes into consideration technical inputs gathered across different projects composing the FP7 CaON cluster, and presents the main trends for optical networks research • Research topics are positioned with relevance to the CaON reference model. • This positioning paper aims at complementing the relevant Photonics 21 and Next!workswhite papers. • Optical infrastructures with their flexibility, transparency, capacity, low cost (cost/bit), isolation capabilities and advanced provisioning services, makes them a key enabler for the evolution and convergence of Future Networks.

4. Introduction/Rationale II • Technologies and innovations at the infrastructure level are going to generate a big impact on the evolution of our society. • Emerging applications are entering the arena of Telco services with an unprecedented end-user acceptance. • Cloud Computing is making its way towards becoming the invisible stratus on which companies base their IT processes. • proclaims of the advantages of Virtualized resources over Physical ones are well known and can be found wherever in the Internet

5. Introduction/Rationale III • Core network will adopt a key role in Cloud service provisioning. • Connectivity capabilities for residential and business customers towards the DCs • Highly reliable, low delay and high BW demanding interconnections between DCs • Cloud and DCs will have unprecedented elasticity and unpredictability. However, current core, and metro networks are not ready for these new traffic demands and behaviour. Optical networks must support: • An extensive amount of requests from DCs while rest of traffic remains unaffected. • BW and QoS assurance between end users & DCs (i.e. real time applications). • QoS enhancement (via better use of existing network and data center). • Flexible networking services enabling on demand fast data transfers • High capacity, scalability and costs optimization with Enhanced service resilience • Responsiveness to quickly changing demands and Infrastructure customisation. • This network model is conceived to: • Accelerate service provisioning and performance monitoring. • Enable on demand connectivity configurations (e.g bandwidth) by end users. • Optimize both Cloud costs and power consumption.

6. Technologies enabling the CaON ref. model I • CaON reference model presents a layered architecture for the convergence of optical networks and Future technologies and services. • ICT convergence plays a key role at the infrastructure level. • At the cross-layer level, the CaON reference model considers two vertical layers. • The SLA and the management layer. The former takes into consideration the mapping of the SLA requirement from the application layer down to the infrastructure resources. • The management functional across the different set of resources (virtual too), and layers in coordination with the control plane and provisioning layer.

7. Technologies enabling the CaON ref. model II • The provisioning layer is focused on a control plane architecture that may provide a new set of functionalities at the infrastructure level, enabling • Multi-domain and multi-technology scenarios with Open control planes and enhanced UNI’s interfaces. • Automated end to end service provisioning and monitoring between different network segments and operators with coordination with the management plane. • Network resources optimization by an integrated control of different network technologies . • Network/IT resources optimization by means of cross-stratum interworking mechanisms. • Operation over Virtual instances of the network infrastructure. • Convergence of analogue & digital communications unifying heterogeneous technologies. • Unified OAM mechanisms able to operate in a complex (multi-technology, multi-domain/carrier). • With regards to virtualisation there are still many research topics to be address and discussed • This is the layer where the network exposes its services and capabilities, enabling: • Application to network interface: it may enable the request of new and advanced services from DC’s/cloud • On demand provisioning services with advance re-planning functionalities. • Co-advertisement, co-planning, composition and co-provisioning of any type of resource and services • Enhanced TE framework for resource optimization and advance allocation for energy consumption. • Implementation of network prototypes comprising the innovative data and control plane solutions • Accelerated uptake of the future networks and service infrastructures enabling increased access capacity and flexibility, as well as cost and power consumption minimization for intensive BW consuming

8. CaON Physical technologies • Core: • Reduction of energy consumption • Combination of best of transport technologies • Multi-domain, multi-technology Control Plane for end-to-end service delivery. • Enabling the virtualization of resources. • Compatible with Gbit/s access rates with guaranteed e2e performance and survivability • Metro: • Flexible and Elastic Core/Metro optical Networks with support diverse traffic demands and a broad range of granularities • Scalable and flexible data plane technologies • Control Plane for elastic optical networks • Node and network architecture for elastic optical networks • Acces • OFDMA-PON to can transparently support various services, allows dynamic BW allocation among services, and resistance to some dispersions effects like chromatic dispersion (CD) • End-to-end low round-trip delay for multimedia communications. • Access network scalability, in terms of connected users, BW and distances; integrating radio-PON and providing an effective resiliency, as the network extends to a higher dimension. • Next Generation Access models: Open neutral network versus operator vertical model

9. CaON Control and Management Plane Technologies I • Control Plane evolution: • Opening the control plane domains towards true multi-vendor and multi-carrier scenarios • Decoupling of the optical transport from the control plane(s) • More flexible and powerful User to Network Interfaces (UNI); i.e. equipping the control plane with more advanced interfaces to external end-user “systems” (e.g. clouds) for any type of bandwidth-on-demand provisioning service, and above all seamlessly integrated with the service layer workflows • Management plane evolution: From rigidness to programmable management: • Interoperability between different NMS’s. • Lack of coordination between layers (L1, L2, L3). • Lack of standards and lack of consensus on interfaces and protocols, especially in terms of defining uniform data models (for NETCONF, MTOSI, etc). • Reduce the complexity, duplication of network devices and roles and manual actions • Lack of programmable features allowing providers to compose and orchestrate a set of operations as a result of an event or a pre-defined policy in the network.

10. CaON Control and Management Plane Technologies II • Evolution in Optical Networks towards cognitive and self-managed networks and its impact on control and management planes • Format transparent wavelength or signal format conversion • Regeneration or network-wide optical frequency/time/phase determination, will support the realisation of such cognitive functions. • Hardware programmable elements deployed to turn state-of-the art optical modules into cognitive-enabled optical system. • developing an open platform to dynamically re-purpose, evolve, self-adapt and self-optimize functions/devices/systems of the optical network infrastructure.

11. Energy efficiency and Green networking • Need for energy-efficient solutions is relevant to all ICT sectors, spanning from DCs to network devices and to users appliances. • Access networks are responsible for a major part of the network power consumption, although consume less power than those in the core. • Power share of the metro and core network segments will grow rapidly • Hybrid OE design is an important asset especially in the medium term to also ensure graceful upgradeability. • In terms of network architectures two strategies should be considered: to gracefully upgrade current infrastructures on one hand and to design new clean slate network paradigms on the other hand

12. Standardisation • Optical data plane technology • Photonic Access: FSAN/ITU • Metro and Core: IETF • Power efficiency • Optical control plane • GMPLS • PCE • IT and network integration • OGF • IETF