OIF finishes OTN monitoring work, PCE Implementation Agreement for Transport SDN

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) says it has completed two critical technical projects that address the increased adoption of OTN for 100G carrier networks and the use of PCE control technology as a building block towards Software Defined Networking (SDN). The Tandem Connection Monitoring (TCM) whitepaper and the Path Computation Element (PCE) Implementation Agreement will ease deployment of new OTN and PCE technologies and ensure that these meet the goals of service providers.

The OTN TCM whitepaper provides guidelines on the use of tandem connection monitoring, a way to monitor performance on segments of an OTN connection. It provides on guidelines on how to apply the six levels of TCM and is intended to help carriers take advantage of the advanced monitoring functions provided by TCM. The whitepaper provides a framework that can be pre-configured into switches to further reduce administrative overhead.

“The adoption of 100G transport technology produced by the OIF is fueling increased need for and adoption of OTN to efficiently fill 100G pipes," said Remi Theillaud of Marben Products and the OIF’s Networking and Operations Working Group chair. “The TCM whitepaper identifies use cases and default configuration for TCM monitoring of performance along OTN paths, using enhanced detection and localization of performance issues possible with OTN.”

The PCE Implementation Agreement defines the use of path computation elements in a multi-domain automatically switched optical network (ASON), taking standards for PCE created by the IETF and identifying subsets of the standards that can be adopted for interoperability across a multivendor, multi-domain carrier network.

"The OIF is working to define a framework for Transport SDN requirements and functions in multi-domain ASON networks, leveraging input from OIF carrier members,” said Lyndon Ong of Ciena and editor of the PCE IA. “PCE defines the separation of path computation functions from the data path and is an early step carriers can take towards SDN that extends the OIF E-NNI control plane. The OIF E-NNI control plane has been tested in multiple OIF interoperability demonstrations.”

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