Bridging the interoperability gap between the Internet and optical network management systems

Despite the efforts made towards the convergence of packet and circuit switched technologies, the isolation between the Internet and the optical Network Management Systems (NMSs) remains unsolved. Today, carriers have nothing but manual means to coordinate the provisioning between the routers and L1 switches, and much less to communicate and coordinate policy rules, or failures between the IP networks and Ethernet/optical networks. In this paper, we outline the strengths of an easy-to-deploy solution, which can overcome the current separation between the IP and the optical NMSs. The solution consists of an adapter (a middle-box), especially designed to provide a simple, reliable, and automated communication channel between the two management layers. The adapter that we conceive will enable automated interoperability between the IP and the optical NMSs, in support of coordinated actions such as: i) IP service provisioning; ii) IP/MPLS offloading; and iii) coordinated self-healing. We contend that our approach not only eliminates the need for large scale integration into a single multi-layer management system, but also bridges the communication gap between two management ecosystems that are currently isolated.