Dynamic support and demonstration for orchestrated multi-domain software-defined optical networks

Software-defined optical network has the combined benefit of both control flexibility and large transport capacity, thus having the potential of realizing a new ground-breaking optical network framework. In this paper, we introduce our recent efforts that have been devoted to the research supported by the STRAUSS project on SDN/Openflow controlled optical networks. The unified SDN control plane is able to configure the optical nodes/devices and thus the optical network through the cooperation of Openflow agents with more flexibility and optimization, thanks to its global knowledge of network resource and centralized controllability. Furthermore, we are able to interconnect our network with other heterogeneous multi-domain networks, while demonstrating the end-to-end flexible service provisioning over both nationwide and international testbeds with SDN orchestration via unified interface based on control orchestration protocol.