We Did It Again!

Last October, I wrote a blog on Infinera’s GX G42 Compact Modular Platform being awarded a Telecom Infra Project (TIP) bronze badge. That badge validated GX’s compliance to TIP’s open and standard API requirements for open optical terminals.

This time around, Infinera is proud to announce that Open Wave Manager (OWM) has also received its own TIP bronze badge. OWM is Infinera’s vendor-agnostic optical domain controller, i.e., a software solution that simplifies the deployment, operation, and troubleshooting of disaggregated DWDM networks, where open optical terminals and coherent pluggable transceivers from multiple vendors operate across third-party optical line systems. OWM’s badge was awarded for its compliance with TIP’s southbound interface (SBI) controller requirements, i.e., its ability to interface to open optical terminals.

Confused? I’ll Break It Down

An optical domain controller, like any network management system (NMS), establishes communication with network elements through its SBI, an application programming interface (API) that enables configuration and monitoring of network devices.

On the other side, network devices expose their functionality toward a controller, NMS, or automation application through their own northbound interface (NBI) APIs. But in an open optical networking world, the controller and device APIs need to be open (i.e., public) and based on standard, vendor-agnostic protocols and data models. This ensures that devices from multiple vendors can be integrated seamlessly into management and automation software, and that this software can operate the multi-vendor network in a uniform manner.

A transponder that implements open APIs based on common data models is called an open optical terminal, while a controller that implements open SBIs based on common data models is a vendor-agnostic optical domain controller.

In short, our GX badge relates to the GX’s ability to be operated as an open optical terminal by a vendor-agnostic optical domain controller. On the other hand, the OWM badge relates to OWM’s ability to operate as a vendor-agnostic optical domain controller of open optical terminals.

More About the Badges

Infinera is committed to open optical networking. We are working actively alongside TIP’s Open Optical & Packet Transport (OOPT) project group and its Mandatory Use Case Requirements for SDN for Transport (MUST) subgroup to accelerate and drive the adoption of software-defined networking (SDN) standards for open optical transport technologies.

TIP OOPT MUST, an initiative led by some of the largest and most influential network operators in the world, including Telia Company, Vodafone, Telefónica, Orange, Deutsche Telekom, MTN, TIM, Turkcell, and Colt, has identified key SDN use cases and defined interoperability requirements for network devices, management and automation software, and their APIs.

In alignment with TIP’s requirements, OWM implements an SBI built on OpenConfig data models, using both NETCONF and gNMI protocols, which enable device configuration as well as monitoring of alarms and telemetry-based performance data.

• OpenConfig, the data models of choice in the MUST subgroup, are based on IETF’s YANG modeling language and have been defined and implemented since 2015, in an operator-led open-source project.
• NETCONF is a powerful network management protocol defined by IETF in 2006 to install, manipulate, and delete the configuration of network devices.
• gNMI is a network management protocol/interface providing a mechanism to configure network devices and view operational data. gNMI is part of gRPC, a high-performance/low-latency framework published in 2015, based on work by Google. In addition to supporting the usual configuration of parameters and status notifications, gNMI is well known for supporting subscription to streaming telemetry services.

GX supports the same data models and management protocols at its NBI.

All in all, this means GX optical terminals can be controlled by OWM or other compliant software, while OWM can control GX terminals, as well as other compliant open optical terminals. And that is the beauty of open networking: truly empowering an operator to embrace multi-vendor networks, gaining more choice, the ability to adopt innovation faster, and overall improved economics.