Towards automated interactions between the Internet and the carrier-grade management ecosystems

For many years, the convergence of Internet data services and transport network services based on optical transmission has been at the heart of carriers' investments and business strategies. Over time, the inherent segmentation of IP and transport networks has created major technology differences, thus impacting their management and operation. In addition, the carrier's organizational separation and fragmentation of technical competencies between “Internet” and “transport” have been and continue to be profound. Consequently, the two networks, while increasingly deployed in tandem, lack automated coordination of management procedures and business practices. To address this challenge, we present a roadmap for convergence from the point of view of network management, and describe an easy-to-deploy solution that can enable coordination of the two networks. To the best of our knowledge, this approach is the first attempt to enable what we define as a “controlled” as opposed to “fully automated” evolution of converged packet and circuit switching networks, without the need for large scale management system integration or changes to the current telecom management practices, other than in improved speed and efficacy.