Optonomic: Architecture for Secure Autonomic Optical Transport Networks

We present a system architecture for autonomic operation, administration and maintenance of both the optical and digital layers within the integrated optical transport network infrastructure. This framework encompasses the end-to-end instrumentation: From equipment commissioning to automatic discovery and bring-up, to self-managed, self-(re)configuring optical transport layer. We leverage prevalent networking protocols to build an autonomic control plane for the optical network elements. Various aspects of security, a critical element for self-managed operations, are addressed. We conclude with a discussion on the interaction with SDN, and how autonomic functions can benefit from these capabilities, a brief survey of standardization activities and scope for future work.