Ekinops has demonstrated the interoperability of its DWDM optical transport solutions with an open source Software Defined Networking (SDN) controller.
Ekinops has announced that its Ekinops 360 DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing) system proved that it interoperates with the ONOS project’s Open Source SDN Network Operating System. The interoperability demonstration was conducted in collaboration with b<>com, the French Institute of Research and Technology, which has strong expertise in new technologies applied to network management, particularly SDN.
For the live demonstration, Ekinops and b<>com worked together to design and develop an interface layer between the SDN controller and the Ekinops 360 platform’s network management protocols.
The interoperability assessment was done on a mesh network consisting of several Ekinops 360 Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer (ROADM) nodes. To perform this live demonstration, 100 gigabit per second wavelength routes were created via the ONOS controller and automatically routed within the mesh network.
“The interoperability experiment was extremely successful,” said Francois X. Ollivier, Ekinops’ chief technical officer. “In light of the increasing interest in SDN, this demonstrates Ekinops’ commitment to offering service providers DWDM Layer 1 solutions that are proven to be SDN-aware.
“These solutions, whether 100G or higher, are readily managed through our management software, enabling NFV (network functions virtualisation) application to configure the physical transport on optical fiber networks.”
“The evolution of 5G networks requires more flexibility and autonomy in their operation. It is based on SDN and NFV concepts. The interface layer developed with Ekinops fully meets those promises,” said Michel Corriou, director of Domain Networks & Security at b<>com.
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