Rostelecom PJSC announced that is has successfully completed the first proof of concept (PoC) compatibility test for transport software-defined networking (SDN) in Russia.
Optical networking equipment from Huawei, NEC and Netcracker and Nokia was included in the PoC, as well as their corresponding domain SDN controllers were managed by an umbrella transport SDN controller provided by NEC/Netcracker. The new hierarchical approach to the transport systems based on SDN ensures an end-to-end control and entire visibility as well as fully automated operations across three separate optical multivendor domains.
Cloud applications and IoT services are driving rapid bandwidth growth, and networks are scaling up more dynamically as a result. This growing trend is also driving the demand for faster creation, deployment of services and a quicker restoration. Rostelecom recognizes the opportunity to meet this need through transport SDN. It is also using this opportunity to test the system’s multivendor capabilities.
The PoC was designed to test a number of scenarios. The multivendor aspect was addressed by selecting the largest producers of optical equipment including Huawei, NEC/Netcracker and Nokia. The umbrella transport SDN controller was provided by NEC/Netcracker through a uniform multidomain view to increase network agility, ensure transparency, particularly when it comes to the rapid development of the systems and its restoration capabilities.
With these elements in place, Rostelecom clients have access to brand-new, on-demand transport services that are automatically provisioned and dynamically optimized in accordance with bandwidth and network performance requirements.
The PoC also demonstrated that the service ordering time, configuration and activation process had been significantly reduced, thereby decreasing the time to enter the market from months to just few hours. Furthermore, the system produced fewer errors and it simplifies the configuration process.
“Together with equipment vendors Huawei, NEC/Netcracker and Nokia, Rostelecom proves transport SDN’s ability to reduce costs and improve network automation,” said Alexey Sapunov, Rostelecom Senior Vice President for Technical Infrastructure. “By using NEC/Netcracker’s multidomain transport SDN controller, which managed multiple underlying domain controllers, Rostelecom was able to eliminate vendor lock-in and lay the foundation for a true multivendor infrastructure.”
“Networks need to undergo a significant transformation and we are excited that the demonstration results showed our Multilayer SDN Controller’s ability to simplify and automate complex networks,” said Aloke Tusnial, Chief Technology Officer of SDN/NFV Business at Netcracker. “By proving interoperability across multiple optical vendors, NEC/Netcracker is helping service providers like Rostelecom to fundamentally rethink their network design and level of automation.”
“Huawei TSDN provides automatic discovery of resources, automatic service provisioning and recovery, and RESTful NBI to 3rd party orchestrator to achieve multi-domain network unified control. This PoC test proved Huawei Transport SDN service automation and NBI openness,” said Jin Yuzhi, President of Huawei Transmission Network Product Line. “Beyond that Huawei has been developing the NCE (Network Cloud Engine) to streamline the end-to-end operation process on the network planning, management, control and analysis functionalities which will provide significant OPEX reduction.”
“NEC is proud to complete successfully the first multivendor transport SDN PoC in Russia. It proves the maximum performance to service providers across all transport layers with this multidomain, multilayer and multivendor transport SDN solution that optimizes network traffic and automates configuration,” said Akihiro Sakurai, Managing Director of JSC “NEC Neva Communications Systems,” NEC Corporation’s subsidiary in Russian Federation. “This proof of concept proved the ability to provide end-to-end network automation and control.”
“The PoC proves once again that networks based on the Nokia 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) platform are open to automated Optical Service creation and operation even in multi-vendor environments by using the Open Abstract SDN APIs of the Network Services Platform (NSP),” said Demetrio Russo, Vice President of the East Europe Market at Nokia. “The NSP platform, our flagship SDN controller, provides world-leading service providers like Rostelecom with a unified and more efficient way to automate, optimize and assure network services across multiple network layers, physical/virtual infrastructure, as well as networks from multiple vendors.”