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OIF CONCLUDES SUCCESSFUL SDN TRANSPORT API INTEROPERABILITY TESTING – RESULTS TO BE REVEALED TODAY AT NGON

Multi-vendor demo showcases new dynamic behavior uses cases and deployment scenarios

Nice, France—June 26, 2018 – Following a six week testing period, the OIF (Optical Internetworking Forum) today announced the conclusion of its 2018 Software-Defined Networking (SDN) Transport Application Programming Interface (T-API) multi-vendor interoperability demonstration. The much-anticipated demo results will be revealed during a public read-out event being held today from 10:00am-12:00pm at NGON & DCI Europe 2018 in Nice, France. ClicktoTweet

Additionally, Juan Pedro Fernández Palacios, Head of Unit, Telefónica will discuss Telefonica’s view of the demo results and use cases during his NGON keynote presentation tomorrow, June 27th.

“In bringing together service providers and optical networking vendors to demonstrate new SDN deployment scenarios including dynamic-behavior use cases, the OIF in collaboration with MEF has taken another important step towards providing the foundation for service providers to efficiently deliver dynamic multi-domain connectivity services to market,” stated Heidi Adams, Senior Research Director, IP & Optical Networks, IHS Markit. “With the 2018 demo event, the T-API 2.0 interface from the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is on its way to becoming a standard northbound interface (NBI) to SDN transport network controllers.”

OIF, in collaboration with MEF, is leading the industry toward the validation and widespread commercialization of T-API 2.0 from the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) as a standard northbound interface (NBI) to transport network controllers.

The multi-vendor demo led by four network operator labs included lab deployed and cloud deployed systems testing new dynamic behavior use cases and deployment scenarios. The demo also incorporated service provisioning scenarios at the LSO Presto reference point in the MEF LSO architecture, using the MEF NRP Interface Profile Specification (MEF 60), which defines extensions to T-API in support of Carrier Ethernet services.

“The OIF SDN Interoperability demonstration has successfully brought together carriers, vendors and integrators with a common goal of moving to an open API (TAPI),” said Jack Pugaczewski, Distinguished Architect, CenturyLink. “T-API is a key enabler for providing automated service fulfillment and assurance. We have tested the Connectivity, Topology and Notification software patterns that T-API provides. Common APIs reduce design, development and deployment cycles for all involved, thus getting to market faster and realizing the financial benefits of automation.”

Participating network operators were CenturyLink, China Telecom, SK Telecom and Telefónica and vendors included ADVA, Coriant, Infinera, NEC/Netcracker, Nokia and SM Optics. Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC) was a participating academic institution and TELUS Communications participated as a consulting network operator.

Additionally, two private events detailing the test results will be held with participating network operators: CenturyLink on July 10 in Denver, Colorado and China Telecom on July 19 in Beijing. Members of the media and analyst community interested in attending, please contact leah@wilkinson.associates.

“The OIF’s goal for interop events is to improve the quality and clarity of specifications being tested,” explained Jonathan Sadler, OIF VP and Networking & Operations Interoperability Working Group Chair. “As the tests were performed, we noted possible points for misunderstanding and places where the specifications may be enhanced. These results will be liaised to ONF and MEF for review at future meetings.”

A technical white paper and an executive summary of the demo result will be available in August.

An infographic of the demo is

Additional information can be found at 2018 OIF SDN T-API INTEROP DEMO

2018 OIF SDN Transport API Interoperability Demonstration

Committed to accelerating the commercialization of transport SDN worldwide, the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF), in collaboration with MEF, will bring new dynamic behavior use cases and deployment scenarios into network operator labs around the world to test multi-vendor interoperability of the industry leading T-API 2.0 northbound interface (NBI) from the Open Networking Foundation (ONF). The 2018 Software-Defined Networking (SDN) Transport Application Programming Interface (T-API) interoperability demonstration builds on the OIF’s 2016 interoperability test and demonstration which addressed multi-layer and multi-domain environments as well as on the 2014 demo which prototyped the use of Northbound APIs and helped advance transport SDN standardization. For an infographic of the demo, click here.

About the OIF

The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com

 

PR Contact:

 

Leah Wilkinson

Wilkinson + Associates for the OIF

Email: leah@wilkinson.associates

Office: +1-703-907-0010

OIF ANNOUNCES READ-OUT EVENT FOR SDN TRANSPORT API INTEROPERABILITY DEMO TO BE HELD AT NGON OPTICAL MASTERCLASS

May 22, 2018  Leah Wilkinson

Demo aimed at accelerating commercialization of Transport SDN

Fremont, Calif.—May 22, 2018 – The OIF (Optical Internetworking Forum) today announced plans for its public read-out events to present the results of the 2018 Software-Defined Networking (SDN) Transport Application Programming Interface (T-API) interoperability demonstration. This year’s demo, in collaboration with MEF, is focused on accelerating the commercialization of Transport SDN through validating the industry leading T-API 2.0 northbound interface (NBI) from the Open Networking Foundation (ONF). ClicktoTweet

The multi-vendor demo includes testing new dynamic behavior use cases and deployment scenarios by network operators CenturyLink, China Telecom, SK Telecom and Telefónica. Participating vendors include ADVA, Coriant, Infinera, NEC/Netcracker, Nokia and SM Optics. Centre Tecnològic Telecomunicacions Catalunya is the participating academic and/or research institution and TELUS Communications is participating as a consulting network operator.

This year’s demo incorporates service provisioning scenarios at the LSO Presto reference point in the MEF LSO architecture, using the MEF NRP Interface Profile Specification (MEF 60), which defines T-API extensions in support of Carrier Ethernet services.

“The OIF multi-vendor interop testing is particularly important to Telefónica’s network transformation. We are anxious to validate T-API as the standard NBI for Transport SDN and announce the results in June,” said Juan Pedro Fernández Palacios, Telefónica.

The results of the demo will be presented during a featured workshop and keynote presentation at NGON & DCI Europe 2018, the world’s leading strategic and technical optical networks event being held in Nice, France, and during two private events at participating network operator labs.

Public Event: NGON & DCI Europe 2018 (Nice, France), Tuesday, June 26, 2018, 10:00am-12:00pm

Optical Masterclass: Speakers will discuss how OIF is assuring interoperability in open, agile next generation optical networks and present updates on critical projects including CEI-56G and CEI-112G, FlexE 2.0, 400ZR and Transport SDN.

Agenda:

  • Welcome & Overview – Dave Brown, OIF President, Nokia
  • Physical & Link Layer Working Group (PLL WG) Overview – Karl Gass, OIF PLL WG Vice Chair Optical, OIF
  • FlexE 2.0 – Dave Ofelt, OIF PLL WG Vice Chair Protocol, Juniper Networks
  • Networking Projects Overview – Lyndon Ong, OIF Market Awareness & Education Committee Co-Chair – Networking, Ciena
  • SDN Transport API Work/Interoperability Demonstration – Jonathan Sadler, OIF Board Member and Networking Interoperability Working Group Chair, Coriant

Additionally, Palacios, Head of Unit at Telefónica, will discuss the demo results and present use cases during his keynote presentation – Transport API: Standardization status, interoperability tests and use cases – on June 27th at NGON.

Invitation-Only: CenturyLink and China Telecom

Two invitation-only read-out events will be held in July. CenturyLink will hold a private read-out event on July 10 in Denver, Colorado and China Telecom will host a private read-out in Beijing on July 19. Members of the media and analyst community interested in attending, please contact leah@wilkinson.associates.

A technical white paper and an executive summary of the demo result will be available in August.

Additional information can be found at http://www.oiforum.com/meetings-and-events/2018-oif-sdn-t-api-demo/

 

About the OIF

The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com

 

PR Contact:

Leah Wilkinson

Wilkinson + Associates for the OIF

Email: leah@wilkinson.associates

Office: +1-703-907-0010

OIF Concludes SDN Transport API Interoperability Testing

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) conducted a six-week long global testing of the Transport Application Programming Interface (T-API) standard from the Open Networking Foundation (ONF). The OIF managed the multi-location demonstration which started in mid-October 2016 and concluded in December 2016.  Vendor participants executed a multi-domain path selection and recovery test plan with intra-lab and inter-lab testing across five carrier labs located in Asia, Europe and North America. A technical white paper on the demonstration is available to download here.

“As operators move from SDN PoCs and lab trials into commercial deployments, lack of interoperability between the SDN controllers and the orchestration layer above has quickly become the biggest technical barrier for many operators,” said Sterling Perrin, principal analyst, Heavy Reading. “Building a standardized northbound interface and successfully testing interoperability across different vendors and different networks – as the OIF has demonstrated – is a major step forward in addressing the northbound interface challenge and bringing SDN architectures to wide-scale commercial use.”

OIF SDN Transport API Interoperability Demonstration

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) and the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) are leading the industry toward the wide scale deployment of commercial SDN by testing key Transport Application Programming Interfaces (T-API). The interoperability test and demonstration, managed by the OIF, addresses multi-layer and multi-domain environments in the following carrier labs; China Telecom, China Unicom, SK Telecom, Telefonica and Verizon. These carriers defined real world use cases including multi-domain orchestration of services delivered through Ethernet, OTN and optical switching. Carriers and vendors demonstrated how Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and SDN configured connectivity are combined to deliver service life cycle management.

Participating vendors include ADVA Optical Networking, Ciena, Coriant, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Infinera, Juniper Networks, NEC Corporation, Sedona Systems, and SM Optics. Consulting carriers include Orange and TELUS.  Academic and/or research institution participants include China Academy of Telecommunication Research (CATR) and Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC).

Additional information can be found here.

Participants in the OIF Transport SDN interoperability event also submitted a proof of concept demo proposal to ETSI NFV.  The proposal, “Mapping ETSI-NFV onto Multi-Vendor, Multi-Domain Transport SDN”, was accepted and details are located here. The open demonstration of NFV concepts in a Proof of Concept (PoC) helps to build industrial awareness and confidence in NFV as a viable technology. Proofs of Concept also help to develop a diverse, open, NFV ecosystem. Results from PoCs may guide the work in the NFV ISG by providing feedback on interoperability and other technical challenges.

“Being able to dynamically establish connectivity between Virtual Network Functions enables carriers to provide greater service agility and reduce opex,” said Jonathan Sadler, of Coriant and the OIF Interoperability chair.  “Integrating multiple technologies using transport SDN further enables the right connectivity mechanisms used for service delivery.  Having this demonstration recognized by ETSI NFV provides building blocks for the development of future SDN-WAN.”

Public Read-Out Event at OFC 2017

Tuesday, March 21, 2017 – 3:00-4:00 pm

Theater III, Los Angeles Convention Center

Moderator: Dave Brown, OIF President, Nokia.

Panelists: Jonathan Sadler, OIF Board Member, Coriant; Lyndon Ong, OIF MA&E Committee co-chair Networking, Ciena; Victor Lopez, Telefonica.

http://www.ofcconference.org/en-us/home/exhibit-hall/show-floor-programming/oif-interop-%E2%80%93-the-key-to-unlocking-the-benefits-of/

“SK Telecom is delighted that we have successfully tested interoperability using SK Telecom’s Transport Infra Orchestrator and T-API. The test proves that standardized T-API can be used to control multi-layer, multi-vendor transport network infrastructure in an integrated manner,”

said Park Jin-hyo, Senior Vice President and Head of Network Technology R&D Center at SK Telecom. “SK Telecom will continue to make efforts to develop 5G and network virtualization technologies to realize Network as a Service (NaaS).”

About the OIF
The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

OIF Announces SDN Transport API Demo Read-Out Events

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) is winding down a six-week long interoperability demo on the Transport Application Programming Interface (T-API) standard from the Open Networking Foundation (ONF).   The demo started in mid-October and will conclude in early December.  Participants executed a multi-domain path selection and recovery test plan with intra-lab and inter-lab testing across multiple global carrier labs. The results of the demo will be shared in three invitation-only read-out events at China Telecom, Telefonica and Verizon for participating companies. A public readout event will take place at the OFC Conference in Los Angeles, March 21, 2017.

“China Telecom is pleased to once again host the Global Transport SDN demo in our lab in Beijing.  Transport API for SDN is an important technology to simplify the maintenance and increase the efficiency of networks, which matches China Telecom’s CTNet2025 network re-architecting target.” said Mr. Chengliang Zhang, Vice President, China Telecom Beijing Research Institute. “This demo provided interesting and important results and key findings and was worthwhile for China Telecom to participate.”

“Telefonica is happy to have participated in the OIF SDN demo and to have hosted vendors in our labs,” said Mr. Juan Pedro Fernández-Palacios, Head of Transport Telefónica GCTO.  “The work to demonstrate interoperability for transport API among multiple vendors is important for the industry as a means to unlock and reap the expected benefits of SDN.”

“Shaping next-generation technology through discussion and collaboration is key to commercial SDN deployment. Verizon’s role as a host carrier for OIF’s interoperability testing of the global SDN T-API underscores our commitment to solving problems that will help evolve the efficiencies needed in the next-generation network,” said Glenn Wellbrock, director, transport network architecture, design and planning, Verizon.

Public Event at OFC 2017

Tuesday, March 21, 2017 – 3:00-4:00pm

Theater III, Los Angeles Convention Center

Moderator: Dave Brown, OIF President, Nokia.

Panelists: Jonathan Sadler, OIF Board Member, Coriant; Lyndon Ong, OIF MA&E Committee co-chair Networking, Ciena; Victor Lopez, Telefonica.

http://www.ofcconference.org/en-us/home/exhibit-hall/show-floor-programming/oif-interop-%E2%80%93-the-key-to-unlocking-the-benefits-of/

A technical white paper and an executive summary of the demo will be available in early February.

2016 OIF SDN Transport API Interoperability Demonstration

The OIF and the ONF are partnering to lead the industry toward the wide scale deployment of commercial SDN by testing key Transport Application Programming Interfaces (T-API). The interoperability test and demonstration, managed by the OIF, will address multi-layer and multi-domain environments in global carrier labs. The testing builds on the 2014 demo which was based on prototype T-APIs and helped advance transport SDN standardization. Additional use cases based upon the API standards will be clarified during the testing and defined through OIF implementation agreements to provide a common set of requirements. Global Carrier participants hosting the interoperability testing include China Telecom, China Unicom, SK Telecom, Telefonica and Verizon.

Participating vendors include ADVA Optical Networking, Ciena, Coriant, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Infinera, Juniper Networks, NEC Corporation, Sedona Systems, and SM Optics. Consulting carriers include Orange and TELUS.  Academic and/or research institution participants include China Academy of Telecommunication Research (CATR) and Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC).

Additional information can be found at http://www.oiforum.com/meetings-and-events/2016-oif-sdn-t-api-demo/

 

About the OIF
The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

OIF Publishes Transport SDN Framework Document

Key Findings from 2014 Demo Inspires Framework Architecture

Fremont, Calif. – May 19, 2015 –Following a 2014 prototype demonstration event, the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) has approved an SDN Framework whitepaper that paves the way for implementation of SDN in Carrier Networks. The whitepaper, titled “Framework for Transport SDN:  Components and APIs”, documents the SDN framework for multi-domain carrier networks.  It identifies critical open APIs for Transport SDN based on synthesis of the SDN layered architecture and the ITU-T ASON functional element model for optical network control.

SDN identifies interfaces separating infrastructure and control layers, and control layer from application layer.  The interface between infrastructure and control layers is termed the SouthBound Interface or SBI, the interface between control and application layers is termed the NorthBound Interface or NBI, and provides APIs to the application.

“In 2014, the prototype demonstration brought together multiple vendors and carriers to test cloud-bursting services, utilizing SDN principles and interfaces,” said Lyndon Ong of Ciena and co-chair of the OIF Market Awareness & Education Committee.  “The demonstration results factored into the development of a framework that allows SDN to be deployed over a carrier’s network with multiple, diverse domains.”

One of the key findings from the demonstration was that the separation introduced by the NBI and SBI enables SDN to be applied over greenfield (i.e., OpenFlow) and brownfield environments, allowing integration of domains controlled by management systems and domains using existing distributed control planes as well as centralized SDN.  A variety of SBI protocols could coexist in the carrier’s Transport SDN network, including the OpenFlow protocol, with extensions for optical networks.

NBI is an area of particular importance; by providing access to ASON functional elements, the NBI opens up access to the network control plane and provides greater programmability of services, improving the speed of service deployment and overall manageability of the network.  Functional elements accessible via NBI in this framework include Call Control, Connection Control, Topology and Path Computation.

The document assesses where existing protocols may be used to support NBI access.  In addition to existing protocols, there are benefits from defining new REST-based interfaces such as were prototyped in the demo, based on a common information model.

For a copy of the SDN framework document http://www.oiforum.com/documents/technical-white-papers/

About the OIF
The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com

OIF Launches New Project to Identify APIs for Transport SDN

Close on the heels of the joint Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) and Open Networking Foundation (ONF) Global Transport SDN demonstration that concluded in October, the OIF has launched a new project to develop implementation agreements (IAs) for the application programming interfaces (APIs) used between application and network controller during the event. The new initiative will build on the Service Request and Topology APIs prototyped in the demonstration, culminating in IAs for use by carriers and equipment vendors. The new initiative will also create IAs for Service Request, Path Computation, Topology and Link Resource Manager interfaces that have been identified as part of the OIF’s upcoming SDN Framework document. The APIs to be delivered by the new project are based on REST and JSON principles enabling rapid and flexible application development.

“The prototype Transport SDN demonstration revealed a lack of definition for how user applications interact with transport network applications and resource functions,” said Jonathan Sadler, of Coriant and the OIF technical committee vice chair. “The programmability of Transport SDN requires some of the internal interfaces used by ASON to become open.”

In particular, a Service API is important as it allows applications to request connectivity services from the network. Having a common Service API allows a variety of applications to access services provided by the network, particularly in an environment with multiple domains with potentially different underlying control methods.

During the Global Transport SDN demonstration, different domains supported a number of South-Bound Interfaces (SBIs) with the Domain controller, including vendor-specific, standard OpenFlow version 1.3, and OpenFlow with optical extensions. The use of a common Service API allowed the same application to be tested across these heterogeneous domains.

Similarly, the Topology API allows applications to understand the connectivity available in the network.  A common Topology API allows a variety of applications to access network topology information, enabling support for new constraints and service criteria.

The Global Transport SDN demonstration implemented a prototype Topology API. Different domains exported their topology information enabling path computation to be performed outside of the controller.  These paths could then be requested using the Service API.  Additionally, the Service API responses had references to links and nodes in the topology, enabling the activated path to be shown.

Leadership Elections

The Forum conducted its annual leadership election with Doug Zuckerman of Applied Communication Sciences and Junjie Li with China Telecom elected to the OIF board of directors for one-year terms. Officers re-elected to two-year terms include Dave Brown of Alcatel-Lucent, vice president of marketing; Dave Stauffer, of Kandou Bus, secretary/treasurer; John McDonough, NEC Corp of America, vice president; and Torsten Wuth, of Coriant, Physical Layer User Group working group chair.

About the OIF
Launched in 1998, the OIF is the first industry group to unite representatives from data and optical networking disciplines, including many of the world’s leading carriers, component manufacturers and system vendors. The OIF promotes the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services through the creation of Implementation Agreements (IAs) for optical, interconnect, network processing, component and networking systems technologies. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of standards bodies and industry forums with the goal of promoting worldwide compatibility of optical internetworking products. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.