SDN-enabled optical transmission systems: Programmability and advanced features

The programmability of optical systems has a key role towards the integration of data and control plane to support advanced functionalities in flexible/elastic and highly scalable software defined networks (SDN). In this work, we illustrate the concept of SDN-enabled optical transmission adopting programmable data plane. Particularly, we focus on the programmability aspects of SDN-enabled optical systems using sliceable bandwidth variable transceiver (S-BVT) architectures based on multicarrier modulation (MCM) technology. We identify the programmable elements and the enabled advanced features, including adaptability, slice-ability and flexibility. Special attention is devoted to monitoring capability as programmability enabler. We show that optical systems programmability and softwarization with a synergic interworking between data and control plane represent a powerful tool for an efficient network resource usage.