sas
Gazetiatye- Home
OpenFlow extends its control to the optical layer
‘Thursday, June 28, 2012 at 2:59PM
Roy Rubenstein in ADVA Optical Networking, Company feature, GMPLS, Google, Jérg-Peter Elbers, Mark Lutkowitz,
OpenFlow, Software-defined networking, Telecom Pragmatics
OpenFlow may be causing an industry stir as system vendors such as ADVA Optical Networking
extend the protocol's reach to the optical layer, but analysts warn that it will take years before
the technology benefits operators' revenues.
"We see OpenFlow as an additional solution to tackle the problem of network
control"
Jérg-Peter Elbers, ADVA Optical Networking
The largest data centre players have a single-mindedness when it comes to service delivery. Players
such as Google, Facebook and Amazon do not think twice about embracing and even spurring
hardware and software developments if they will help them better meet their service requirements.
Such developments are also having a wider impact, interesting traditional telecom operators that
have their own service challenges.
wn gazette comoera201208/28/openow-eends i con ol-o-the- optical layer. printer rienay=true 8sas
‘cazotabye- Home
‘The latest development causing waves is the OpenFlow protocol. An open standard, OpenFlow is
being developed by the Open Networking Foundation, an industry body that includes Google,
Facebook and Microsoft, telecom operators Verizon, NTT and Deutsche Telekom, and various
equipment makers.
OpenFlow is already being used by Google, and falls under the more general topic of sofiware-
defined networking (SDN). A key principle underpinning SDN is the separation of the data and
control planes to enable more centralised and simplified management of the network.
OpenFlow is being used in the management of packet switches for cloud services. "The promise of
software-defined networking and OpenFlow is to give [data centre operators] a virtualised network
infrastructure," says Jérg-Peter Elbers, vice president, advanced technology at ADVA Optical
Networking,
‘The growing interest in OpenFlowis reflected in the activities of the telecom system vendors that
have extended the protocol to embrace the optical layer. But whereas the content service provider
giants need only worry about tailoring their networks to optimise their particular services, telecom
operators must consider legacy equipment and issues of interoperability.
Market research fim Telecom Pragmatics believes it will be years
before software-cetined networking (SDN) will beneft operators
The last couple of RFPs [request-fr-proposals] we've seen - one
large, one medium-sized - didn’t mention SON or OpenFlows, says
Mark Lutkowitz, principal at Telecom Pragmatics. The point being, we
are not even atthe stage where carriers are insisting that vendors
[come up with same kind of story or it
Mearuhile, Google's widespread use of OpenFiow dovs not surprise
Lukowz. “Google has a relatively simple Ethernet! WOM network
|which is why they are able to pull it of they dont have the
|complexiis that those other service providers have that will make
[SON a lot more problematic." he says. “The fact that Google is doing it
[SDN] is nota strong indication that service providers are going to do it
{tomnorrow:
Lukowtz also stresses that a standard for SON has sti to be defined
land that as more system vendors announce SON developments, itis
becoming ess clear as to what the standard wil look lke
OFELIA
ADVA Optical Networking has started the ball rolling by running an experiment to show OpenFlow
controlling both the optical and packet layers of the network. Until now the protocol, which provides
a sofiware-programmable interface, has been used to manage packet switches; the adding of the
optical layer control is an industry first, the company claims.
‘The OpenFlow demonstration is part of the European “OpenFlow in Europe, Linking Infrastructure
and Applications” (OFELIA) research project involving ADVA Optical Networking and the
University of Essex. A test bed has been set up that uses the ADVA FSP 3000 to implement a
colourless and directionless ROADM-based optical network.
wn gazette comoera201208/28/openow-eends i con ol-o-the- optical layer. printer rienay=true a8sas
‘cazotabye- Home
"We have put a network together such that people can run the optical layer through an OpenFlow
interface, as they do the packet switching layer, under one uniform control umbrella," says Elbers.
"The purpose of this project is to set up an experimental facility to give researchers access to, and
have them play with, the capabilities of an OpenFlow-enabled network.”
"The fact that Google is doing it [SDN] is not a strong indication that
service providers are going to do it tomorrow"
Mark Lutkowitz, Telecom Pragmatics
Remote researchers can access the test bed via GEANT, a high-bandwidth pan-European backbone
connecting national research and education networks
ADVA Optical Networking hopes the project will act as a catalyst to gain useful feedback and ideas
from the users, leading to further developments to meet emerging requirements
OpenFlow and GMPLS
Akey principle of SDN, as mentioned, is the separation of the data plane from the control plane.
"The aim is to have a more unified control of what your network is doing rather than running a
distributed specialised protocol in the switches," says Elbers.
‘That is not that much different from the Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS), he
says: "With GMPLS in an optical network you effectively have a data plane ~ a wavelength switched
data plane - and then you have a unified control plane implementation running on top, decoupled
from the data plane."
But clearly there are differences. OpenFlow is being used by data centre operators to control their
packet switches and generate packet flows. The goal is for their networks to gain flexibility and
agility: "A virtualised network that can be run as you, the user, want it," said Elbers.
But the protocol only gives a user the capability to manage the forwarding behavior of a switch: an
incoming packet's header is inspected and the user can program the forwarding table to determine
how the packet stream is treated and the port it goes out on.
And while OpenFlow has since been extended to cater for circuit switches as well as wavelength
circuits, there are aspects at the optical layer which OpenFlow is not designed to address - issues
that GMPLS does.
To run end-to-end, the control plane needs to be aware of the blocking constraints of an optical
switch, while when provisioning it must also be aware of such aspects as the optical power levels and
optical performance constraints. "The management of optical is different from managing a packet
switch or a TDM [circuit switched] platform," says Elbers. “We need to deal with transmission
impairments and constraints that simply do not exist inside a packet switch.”
wn gazette comoera201208/28/openow-eends i con ol-o-the- optical layer. printer rienay=true isas
Ccazotabye- Home
‘That said, having GMPLS expertise, it is relatively simple for a vendor to provide an OpenFlow
interface to an optical controlled network, he says: "We see OpenFlow as an additional solution to
tackle the problem of network control."
Operators want mature and proven interoperable standards for network control, that incorporate all
the different network layers and that use GMPLS.
"We are seeing that in the data centre space, the players think that they may not have to have that
level of complexity in their protocols and can run something lower level and streamlined for their
applications,” says Elbers.
While operators see the benefit of OpenFlow for their own data centres and managed service
offerings, they also are eyeing other applications such as for access and aggregation to allow faster
service mobility and for content management, says Elbers.
ADVA Optical Networking sees the adding of optical to OpenFlow as a complementary approach:
the integration of optical networking into an existing framework to run it ina more dynamic fashion,
an approach that benefits the data centre operators and the telcos.
"If you have one common framework, when you give server and compute jobs then you know what,
kind of comnectivity and latency needs to go with this and request these resources and reconfigure
the network accordingly,” says Elbers.
But longer term the impact of OpenFlow and SDN will likely be more far-reaching: applications
themselves could program the network, or it could be used to enable dial-up bandwidth services ina
more dynamic fashion. "By providing software programmability into a network, you can develop
your own networking applications on top of this - what we see as the heart of the SDN concept," says
Elbers. “The long term vision is that the network will also become a virtualised resource, driven by
applications that require certain types of connectivity.”
Providing the interface is the first step, the value-add will be the things that players do with the added
network flexibility, either the vendors working with operators, or by the operators’ customers and by
third-party developers.
"This is a pretty significant development that addresses the software side of things,” says Elbers,
adding that software is becoming increasingly important, with OpenFlow being an interesting step in
that direction,
Article originaly appeared on Gazettabyte (http://www gazettabyte.comy)
‘See website for complete article Icensing information,
wn gazette comoera201208/28/openow-eends i con ol-o-the- optical layer. printer rienay=true 48