OIF reveals details of network operator-vendor SDN API interop demo

Created April 16, 2018
Focused on accelerating the commercialization of transport SDN, leading global network operators and vendors will test new, more dynamic use casesNews and Business

Focused on accelerating the commercialization of transport SDN, leading global network operators and vendors will test new, more dynamic use cases.

Committed to accelerating the commercialization of transport SDN worldwide, the Optical Internetworking Forum has announced plans for its 2018 Software-Defined Networking Transport Application Programming Interface interoperability demonstration.

In collaboration with MEF, this year’s demonstration (scheduled for June-July) will “bring new dynamic behaviour use cases and deployment scenarios” into network operator labs around the world to test and validate the industry leading T-API 2.0 northbound interface from the Open Networking Foundation, the announcement stated.

The event will also incorporate service provisioning scenarios at the Lifecycle Service Orchestration Presto reference point in the MEF LSO architecture, using the MEF NRP Interface Profile Specification, known as “MEF 60”, which defines T-API extensions in support of MEF Carrier Ethernet services.

Towards dynamic control
Network operators are rapidly moving toward giving customers and their applications the ability to dynamically control services, and do it in real-time. The days of waiting for service changes will soon be a thing of the past. To achieve this, they need the ability to dynamically move capacity quickly in open networks to avoid network congestion and provide better services to customers.

Dave Brown, Nokia and OIF President, commented, “With network operators leading the charge for more dynamic and open networks, there has to be widespread adoption of transport SDN. Through working through the specifications, rigorous interoperability testing and validation, this year’s demo is intended to substantiate T-API as the NBI of choice.”

Pascal Menezes, CTO, MEF, added, “The MEF is pleased to contribute our LSO Presto NRP API work in support of the OIF SDN Transport API Interop Demo as we advance toward a common goal of orchestrating dynamic services over automated networks powered by SDN and LSO. This is exactly the type of collaboration that we need to accelerate industry innovation and deliver lasting value for service providers and their end customers.”

Dr. Junjie Li, China Telecom and OIF Network Operator Working Group Chair, said, “The work done by OIF is critically important to network operators around the world as we work to provide our customers with better services and higher efficiency, which will definitely help the monetization of our network capacity.”

Multiple vendors and operators
The international joint-network operator, multi-vendor optical networking interoperability demonstration includes network operator hosts CenturyLink, China Telecom, SK Telecom and Telefonica and participating vendors include Adva Optical Networking SE, Coriant, NEC/Netcracker, Nokia, SM Optics and ZTE Corporation. Centre Tecnològic Telecomunicacions Catalunya is the participating academic and/or research institution and TELUS Communications is participating as a consulting network operator.

Regional demonstration read-out events will take place in mid-2018 and a whitepaper describing the event will be available to the public following the announcement of the results.

Additional information can be found on the OIF website.

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This article was written
by Matthew Peach

Matthew Peach is a freelance technology journalist specialising in photonics and communications. He has previously worked for several business-to-business publishers, editing a range of high-tech magazines and websites.