Optical Network Programmability - Requirements and Applications

TL;DR

This paper discusses the requirements, applications, and use cases of optical network programmability, emphasizing the need for open APIs to meet diverse datacenter interconnection needs and illustrating current research directions.

Contribution

It defines specific requirements and applications for optical network programmability and presents use cases illustrating current research trends in the field.

Findings

Identification of key requirements for optical network programmability

Development of open northbound APIs with varying control levels

Illustration of research directions through practical use cases

Abstract

Datacenter operators and internet content providers require optical network programmability to efficiently interconnect distributed datacenters. This paper describes the requirements, applications and use cases for optical network programmability. Based on application scenarios, open northbound APIs with different levels of control and abstraction to address different network operator requirements which are defined. For their illustration, use cases for optical network programmability show current research directions.