Unveil the latest optical transport network face: software-defined OTN

The challenges faced by traditional optical transport networks

1. The traffic is growing rapidly, and the single carrier capacity is approaching the limit.

In recent years, with the development of the Internet, the number of Internet users, the types of applications, and the bandwidth requirements have all exploded. In China, for example, the annual growth rate of trunk network traffic in the next 4 to 5 years will be as high as 60-70%. The total bandwidth of the backbone transmission network will increase from 64Tb/s to around 150Tb/s, even above 200Tb/s. In the face of huge digital torrents, the demand for ultra-high-speed optical interfaces has sprung up, and the transmission rate of lines has gradually developed from 40G/100G and 400G/1T+. Multi-carrier technology is the trend after 100G, how to improve the spectrum utilization efficiency of multi-carrier technology, and how Improving the overall spectrum utilization efficiency of the network through flexible adjustment of resources has become the primary issue for the next step.

2, new applications emerge in an endless stream, how to flood the dynamic business

With the wide application of cloud computing and data centers, various new types of new services and applications have emerged. In addition to the huge digital flood, the transport network will face the dynamic and unpredictable nature of the flood. Traditional optical transport networks are based on fixed-rate OTN interfaces, fixed-spectrum spectral spacing, and layer-by-layer separation management, with features such as over provisioning and "staTIc connecTIvity" under such conditions. It seems inefficient, and it is necessary to establish a flexible and open new architecture to achieve "automatic deployment" and "instantaneous bandwidth adjustment."

Software-defined OTN architecture

The software-defined optical transport network is an optical transport architecture that dynamically adjusts the transmission resources by software through flexible and programmable configuration of hardware. Its core technologies include: flexible and variable optical and electrical functional modules, high-speed, low-power programmable optical systems, Openflow standard control interfaces and open application interfaces (APIs), and programmable transfer controllers (Programmable) Transport Controller) implements optical network programming and resource cloudization to provide efficient, flexible and open pipeline network services for different applications. The system architecture is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Software-defined OTN system architecture

Figure 1 Software-defined OTN system architecture

The software-defined OTN has three characteristics of “elastic pipeline”, “instant bandwidth” and “programming optical network”, which can meet the requirements of rapid deployment of different services, bandwidth on demand, network easy to manage, etc., which can effectively reduce operators. TCO, improving profitability.

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